Her* Room

Black and white and ballet slippers. Quilt by Granmda D. Hand-knit sweater with owl-cables by my Grammy. Humpty-Dumpty lamp has been in the family since my 45 year old brother's nursery!

*The newest her.

Rhubarb Pie

A stucco Arts & Crafts house built in 1926.

It's not for everyone, but rhubarb pie is the favorite of a select group of adamant pie lovers. It's also the code name of my new house project, chosen because any house I was going to move into would feel warm and homemade, and be suited for not just anyone. My brother coached me on the project and just giving it a name that resonated for me was a huge help in keeping my excitement going and my motivations present while confronting the fear of uprooting into the unknown. And the paperwork, don't forget the paperwork!

My brother, who gets paid large amounts of money to coach Fortune 500 executives, will always tell you, you have to know the future -- what you want -- and leave figuring out "how to" for later. We created an aggressive date of July 1st when we'd be in our new house. And we came pretty damn close. Our house was on the market on April 21st, we closed on our new place on July 11th, and were sleeping there a day later. The house we are selling is currently under contract and *fingers crossed* will be sold before September is out!

And it's awesome! There is still a lot to do, but Mr. SevPrez and I both feel like we found our dream home. We each got what we wanted. I got a historic home with architectural detail and good bones in a nice neighborhood. He got a huge yard (it's a triple lot -- so much to landscape and room for a big garden) and a town that he feels is keeping it real. 

I was really nervous about moving the Little One. Every time I brought it up she would say "NO! We are NOT moving to a new house!" Seriously, for weeks I tried. My mom (the child whisperer) recommended we find a library book about moving, then upped the ante and said she was going to write a book about us, with pictures and everything. Only my mother.

I gave it one more try, before we started packing boxes on the 4th of July, and told her that her birthday party would be at the big new house. And don't you know it, she changed her tune! I gave her a box to decorate and she became part of the process. My mom delivered the book a few days later and she was filled with authentic excitement and a better understanding of what was about to happen.

She had a brief moment of yearning for the old house before bed on our first night, but when she woke up on Sunday morning, we heard her step into the hallway and say to no one in particular, "I love my new house!" 

And the project was complete.

Growing Up

Time is a vortex that presents fleeting moments of clarity. All of the sudden my daughter three feet tall, going tinkle on the potty, and taking showers all by herself. It seems like it happened all in a week. We were getting nowhere and then BAM! She grew so much in a moment.

Then I trimmed her hair ever so slightly one day to reduce the tangles. Then I cut her bangs. A watershed moment. She now looks so much like me at that age. She lost her baby face. She's a kid. For all intents and purposes, she might as well be three. Six? Twelve? It's crazy.

Another thing. We are house shopping, and trying to have an open mind, so we've looked at a lot of properties in a lot of towns. Some houses I refer to as "grown up houses," not for me. Someone could have a nice life here, but not me. A perfectly perfect house, with all the bedrooms, closets, appliances, and bathrooms a sensible person would need. But I'd be living someone else's life.

We found a dream home for a great price. An estate home. After a few false starts, we went under contract and into attorney review. Then, at 4:45pm on a Friday, their lawyer sent a letter via email to my realtor canceling contract. I was so looking forward to celebrating Mother's Day triumphantly with our new house all queued up, that it's a bit of a let down. But that's the way the real estate cookie crumbles. We'll live to fight another day on Monday and see what the lawyers have to say.

More updates as we get them. Cross your fingers.

On The Market

After seven lovely years, we are putting our house on the market. It's a little nervewrecking but very exciting to stand in a place where we can choose our future home base. Our intention is to move into a slightly larger house (nothing crazy) that is closer to our family. Which, incidentally, takes us closer to my work and the beach. Not bad.

Isn't it funny that your house looks its best when you decide to move out of it? Maybe we'll learn how to maintain a tighter living space and reap the benefits in our new place.

Brotherly Love

Check out this amazing watercolor my brother painted and gave to us for our sixth wedding anniversary. He is a visionary architect and has recently taken up watercolors as a new medium to express his creativity. Acquiring my favorite of his pieces prompted me to entirely shift the display of art in our whole house.

It's pretty much the first thing you see in our house upon entry.

Please note the surfboards that I painted my other brother in the early 90s. It is the only thing that survived from everything I made during art lessons. I'm glad sentimentality kept someone from throwing it out, and that my dad thought to bring it to my house when he cleaned out the garage. I'd be willing to give it back, but only if asked really nicely.

Rounding out the new vignette are some floral prints I've found antiquing, a print of a woman with cropped hair laying in a field next to a basket of blueberries that used to be my Grammy's, a Chagall I cropped from a calendar collection, and an original painting of a Paris street scene by our now deceased family friend and B-movie star Norma Eberhardt Dauphin. We have three of Norma's pieces in Baby SevPrez's room and they are unbelievably awesome.

There's nothing like original art in your home.

Come On Knock On Our Door...

Because I finally painted it. After much hemming and hawing on what would be the most excellent color, I went with the same dark grey that we painted the floor in the back room. Which means we had the paint sitting in our garage the whole time. Which also means that I completed this project on a Monday night after work because it required zero trips to the store for supplies. Score.


I think the house looks $5000 nicer with just this little change. It creates a much richer, more loved entrance to the house. 


This is the summer of curb appeal improvements. I'll post more on all the landscaping Mr. SevPrez has been doing. Our house is radically nicer looking from the outside. I can hear the sighs of relief from our neighbors.

Happy Birthday Mom

Put a birthday card together with my new watercolor markers before my mom's birthday brunch. Started with no ideas so I was happy with how it came out.




























In other news we actually managed to get the office organized and the bathroom painted yesterday! Both projects still have a way to go, but I don't think I've felt so productive since I pushed a human being out of my body six months ago. 

Progress

Since my last post I've been doing the January thing... Eating more green vegetables in my dinners (then, against my better judgement, following it  up with Twizzlers AKA poison, and waking up feeling terrible). Cleaning out my closet (triumphant without caveat). Going back to the Power Center where I have found that my fears of working out with 18 year old Division I scholarship athletes has been replaced with the even grimmer reality of working out with 13 year old boys. A horrifying situation for sure, but when I get past my urge to run out the door, I find it's actually an opportunity to put my middle school gym class feelings of inadequacy and isolation to rest once and for all -- which is not to say that I don't always finish last in all the exercises, or that I don't feel like screaming out "You know I had a baby 5 months ago!!!" but I'm getting there. Actually I find that my mom tendencies are more predominant -- I want to yell at the kids for being obnoxious, half-assing everything, and not doing all 3 sets of reps. Then I just tell myself, they are kids, and not your kids. Let them learn life's lessons at their own pace, which, after all, is the only pace at which anyone learns anything anyway. 


Yesterday morning I was mentally patting myself on the back for not buying anything in the month of January (sure it was only 12 days but it felt like SO much longer) when I got an email from my boss alerting me to a flash sale of brightly colored pillows on One King's Lane that she felt I just couldn't miss. Damnit! I ended up buying two pillows for our new couch (which still hasn't arrived yet). At checkout, next to the total you're spending, it says "You're saving $X amount!" which triggered all my rage and shame about our American consumer culture and made me feel like a stooge for making the purchase. But I did love the pillows, and we will give them a good home, and I can use them in any of the rooms of my house for a long time so I got over it. (Also in this category: I am looking to get a rug for P's room and have decided only to get a rug she won't grow out of and that we can use in other rooms. I had visions of a baby pink rug on the curb in 8 years.)

At the end of the day I will never be a minimalist.  
Hopefully just a manageablist.

Next. I was cleaning out my desk at work (for maintenance, I'm not going anywhere) and couldn't bring myself to toss this very old doodle. Ridiculous. This morning I decided to scan it and get over myself. I feel better, even if it is only a slip of paper. Does this count as posting a drawing? I have been meaning to draw something for a while now. Sigh.

Admit it: this would be the illest print on a pillow.
Totally worth keeping for 4 years.

Full disclosure, I also bought a bunch of watercolor markers yesterday. I think I must buy art supplies every winter, since all I aspire to do is stay in all weekend and make stuff (which actually happens once a year). Which is probably why I am so creative in all my fantasies about what our lives will be like if we move to Maine. Promise to post something I make with them soon, since that will further justify their purchase. Also I swear I am going to get my office organized, which means all my art supplies will have a beautiful nook to dwell in. More fantasies!!

And coming up: Stolen Goods Bake Shop will be popping up at The Market at Porta for Valentine's Day, on February 11th, noon to 4. We'll be bringing some excellent alternatives to Whitman Samplers that you can impress your valentines with. Thank me later.

Oh! And little P is rolling over, sitting up, and eating solids. Time flies!!!

Happy January.

Quality Control

I've been thinking a lot about quality lately. Quality of life. Air quality. Quality wardrobe investments. Top quality pieces of furniture. The quality of my writing (which has taken a nose dive on this blog, sorry about that.)


So many things in 2011 are disposable. As a culture it seems we've decided that disposable = easier. Maybe that's true in the short term. Buy a bottle of water and throw it out when you're done. That's easier than remembering to fill up a water bottle at home, carrying the empty vessel around when you've drank all the water, and washing it when you get home. But think of all the hidden work in that water bottle. You have to stop somewhere to get it. You have to throw almost $2 away on it. You acquire a useless receipt that may or may not hang around in your pocket for too long. You have to wrangle with the recyclables at your house. And then there's the psychic toll of thinking about how all our empty water bottles have turned into the 8th continent of the world. Ugh. (Have you seen The Story of Stuff? It takes 20 mintues. Do check it out.*)


Or take most of things that are bought at Ikea. Sure, my $600 Ikea couch lasted almost a decade. But I also have a garage full of $20 lamps, chairs, and $2 vases that I cannot bear to throw out but don't want in my house anymore. I bought them when I moved from an apartment to a house and felt the imperative to fill the house up. But I couldn't afford nice pieces and didn't take the time to muse about what the chair that I would really love and treasure for the better part of my lifetime would look like. I just saw things at Ikea that I could afford immediately, and voila -- problem solved. (Apparently I'm not the only one, and that's why Ikea is the biggest furniture manufacturer in the world.)


Or all the sweaters I've bought because they were $20 on sale and who doesn't need another cardigan? You know who? I don't. It's taken me a long time to figure out that having a glut of bargain clothing doesn't make me a better dresser because I have more options. In fact I tend to wear the same things over and over again because I can barely squeeze my hand between the clothes in my closet to see what's in there. I forget about a lot of the clothes I have because they are lost in the oversupply. I give away a garbage bag of clothing every seasonal wardrobe rotation. I just keep filling up my closet with irresistible bargains. The quantity obscures the quality. 


Having a baby who comes with lots of stuff has really amped up my anxiety about being overstuffed. There are less drawers in which I can hide away my extra things. The baby has a lot of stuff that is constantly in use and has to stay out in the open. So I find myself, about every 2 weeks, thinking of a new corner of my house that needs to be organized and cleaned. All the things stuffed into my secret hiding places need to be ruthlessly sorted through, thrown out, or put back in an orderly fashion -- in clear bins labeled with a P-Touch! I want to be one of those Bed Bath & Beyond ladies!!!! Okay, no, I don't actually need to go shopping to acquire more things to put my things in. But I have never before had the desire to take on these particular Martha Stewart qualities (in the past it's always been glue guns, yes, overly organized drawers, no). 


A lot of people feel over-stuffed at this time of year with food and with objects. This year my family tried to reduce the amount of presents exchanged, and though we did make a dent, I still found myself really disappointed with the amount of shopping, spending, and wrapping I did. But it was a step in the right direction. 


I have gained a lot of resolve and taken solace in a blog called Treehouse Chatter. It's written by a friend of mine who over the past few years has embraced veganism, minimalism, and environmentalism. I don't want to speak for her (you should really read her blog), but I think her personal evolution has come from a very curious, exploratory place, and as a result I find what she shares on her blog (and in our conversations) to be inspiring and ellucidating, not judgmental, intimidating, preachy, or militant. I am really happy to have a place on the internet that I can visit when I have cruised my regular assortment of pretty blogs that have me thinking that I would be a much happier person if I got yet another incarnation of a long-sleeved striped t-shirt. 


It's nice to know that there are blogs that inspire healthier living, not just online shopping. I'm not sure what Seven Presidents inspires, but I hope maybe I have piqued your curiosity enough for you to click on Treehouse Chatter and see what it has to say. 




*After you've watched that, perhaps you need something a little lighter. I recommend Marcel The Shell With Shoes On One & Two.

Coming To A Living Room Near Me

We finally pulled the trigger on a new couch, and it's spectacular.  "Go big or go home" is definitely turning out to be my home decor mantra, between this velvet fox and my yellow chairs. I think I will just have to be one of those people who has a house filled with eccentric treasures that somehow go together because they are loved ecstatically. And I'm okay with that.

Special shout-out to Sonny the cat, who we lost last month. His passing allowed us to finally let go of our 7 year old Ikea wreck and move on to something more grown up. I know what you're thinking -- your kid is going to ruin that couch. You may be right, but the time was right for us to say yes to a piece of furniture that we absolutely love.

Extra-special shout out to Mr. SevPrez who rejected my reasonable, compromise choice in couches and fell in love with my fantasy couch, and then spent all of Thursday night moving furniture around to make it fit in our family room. (We won't get the new couch til February but we are living with the new configuration.)

We spend a lot of time on our couch. And a lot of time looking at it, since we have an open floor plan. Why not have something big, bold, and beautiful? Life is short, seize the teal velvet!

Clearly I Have A Chair Thing

You know, a thing for chairs? I am about to inherit some excellent chairs (in the style of the 2nd picture) from a family friend, and I am already daydreaming about reupholstering them. And all I can think about are these two imagines I've pinned to my Pinterest page...

Would it be crazy to buy some canvas, or whatever kind of fabric would be good for upholstery, and hand paint it?!! Because that's all I fantasize about. Even if I just hand painted a stripe, I just think it would look so amazing. But what color? I keep thinking red but then I wonder where on earth these chairs are going (this is what happens when you have a thing for chairs -- I never even told you about the mid-century Italian Leather ones I scored for a song while antiquing with my mom in Allenhurst during the heat wave just days before going into labor). I think at least one of them could go in little P's room, and I'd rather it be pink. But then what about when she's a teenager and is so over pink? Maybe royal blue? Grey? Black and white? Brown (totally not my instinct, but could be nice)? I might have to call up Lenny and see how poorly he reacts to this idea to gage just how crazy I'm being.

I am going to consult with my most trusted design aficianados (my SGBS partner, my brothers, my boss) and will report back on the project. But what do you think?

DIY Headboard

So at around 9 months pregnant (yeah, I'm going on 10 months, still no baby) I finally got around to making that faux upholstered headboard that had been on my list for almost a year. I had seen enough web tutorials on Design*Sponge and Young House Love etc. to have a general idea and make it up as I went along. 


I got Mr. SevPrez to pick up a piece of plywood at Home Depot, precut to the measurements I gave him, then I was off to Grayline Linens in the Garment District to pick out some linen. It was the most amazing and somewhat overwhelming selection of linens ever. Who knew there were so many subtleties. I went with something soft, natural colored, and got a remnant so I think it was only $25 for two and a half yards.


Next I borrowed a staple gun from my dad and got some quilt batting from Joann Fabrics, and was off to the races. The hardest part was getting the corners to my liking. They get a little puffy where the batting is folded (like you would wrap a present) but as I've said before, I'm not really one to stress the details so I just went with it. Once I got the whole thing covered in fabric it was barely noticeable. Another thing -- is it impossible to iron creases out of linen or what!? Holy smokes I probably spent a good hour ironing the fabric before I stapled it but STILL couldn't get all the creases completely out. Thank god I'm not a devil for details.


The hardest part about the whole project? Working around the belly. But it was well worth it. A plain and simple headboard for under $75, and it completes the new bedroom (we swapped rooms with the babe-to-be). Awesome sauce.

Say hi to Beary, my bear for life.

Unexpectedly Awesome

The hardwood under the wall to wall upstairs and up-the-stairs.
A work in progress, but something to smile about.

This may mean we need to class up the joint and get a better light. 

The Only Wall In The House

Our small Cape Cod is full of windows, built-ins, and wood panelling (painted white, thankfully). Since we moved in we opened up the first floor by knocking out a wall in our kitchen. The upstairs is a classic small Cape Cod configuration of sloped ceilings and dormers. This is a round about way of explaining that basically, we have no place to hang anything on our walls. I was pretty sad about this until I realized that all our family photos could adorn our stairwell! It's such a non-space that I had been neglecting it. 

A few months ago I went to Ikea and bought a ton of frames, mostly white ones in various sizes but also a few small unfinished wood ones that I painted grey with left over test samples from Benjamin Moore. (I had to resist the temptation to use only white frames. So many people do that -- understandably, it looks like a million bucks -- that I feel like I had to add my own (messier) personality and use some of my existing frames from our old apartment.) They were sitting around for a long time before I filled them with photos (it's so much harder now that everything is digital). Then they sat a little longer until Mr. SevPrez and his SevParents embarked on the upstairs painting extravaganza. 

This Sunday, after a Stolen Goods pop up the day before and an action packed Mother's Day Brunch at my brother's, I came home intending to take a nap, but somehow found myself hanging frames up the stairs. It must be the nesting instinct.

I followed the ingenious tips from the guys over at Young House Love, namely to use scrap paper and tape to map out where everything will go on the wall before making holes everywhere. Next you mark where all the nails go on the scrap paper, hammer them in, remove the paper, hang the frame, and just like magic, everything looks perfect the first time. No cursing required.

The only thing bad about this project is that it's a tough space to photograph, so I can't share any good pictures with you. But I assure you that walking up and down the stairs has become a totally different experience. I look forward to being reminded of our great friends and family and the highlights of our lives. 

Next time we go to Ikea we'll pick up some more frames. We have more space on the wall I started and there is a small empty wall at the top of the landing that will probably get filled up as well. This is good, since I think once our little one gets here we'll have lots more photos to add.

Housework v. Homework

Mr. SevPrez is finishing up with his first year of grad school — hurray! With his internship complete, his papers turned in and only a few days of classes left, he's started to attack the very long list of things we need done around the house. Currently he's painting the upstairs bedrooms, taking them from what I intended to be a subtle, discreet shade of alabaster — in reality an ugly butter yellow that I've hated since the day it dried — to a discreet, soothing elephant shade of gray (Benjamin Moore's Harbor Gray, the green version that gives off no VOCs and therefore isn't scary to pregnant ladies like me). 


He made a huge dent in the project yesterday and it already looks 200 times better. I can't wait to see it today with all the trim work done. Pictures to come, but I am so happy to have my man about the house back that I thought we needed a new banner here at the Seven Presidents blog. And by "we" I mean I, I have just been very swept up with the royals, between being blindsided by my infatuation with the wedding (that Kate is just so charming and graceful) and watching "The Kings Speech" this weekend. It was a great movie. I'm still not sure it was The Best Picture, but it was definitely a great watch especially on the heels of the royal extravaganza. Also a great movie: "The Lives of Others." Two thumbs up from both me and the mister, which doesn't happen very often.

Yellow House*

I've been antiquing up and down the state of Maine for the last week, snatching up everything I can find that's yellow. Apparently I am deep in the throws of a love affair with the color. So far I've racked up two planters (neither of which I plan on using for plants -- one's for my growing bangle collection, the other for cell phones and various trinkets that get dropped off at the back door entrance); a wax candle bust of a fisherman; an elephant planter (which I plan on using as a book end); and an awesome metal stool. I had to slowly back away from a set of four old yellow and white dishes, and a third (yes third!) yellow planter that was a good deal.

What can I say? Yellow is happy, bold, and fun; looks good with white and grey, the overriding colors in my house; and plays well with red and aqua, my two other favorite accent colors. Plus anything I buy that's yellow rationalizes my choice in fabric for my wingback chairs.

I picked up a few other things too. A glass platter that I got for a steal that will look great at a Stolen Goods pop up with Salted Fudge Brownies on top, a candy dish, and two Easter decorations. Love the egg and the bunny and can't wait to bring them out with my Sharpie Easter Eggs.

*This post is named after one of the greatest albums to come out in the last decade.

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.

Reclaiming Our Wood Floors

I have jokingly been referring to the wood floors we unearthed in our living room as "Brooklyn industrial chic." You know, as if we were living in some amazing loft carved out of an old ship factory or something. But from here on out they'll be called "reclaimed." 


Apparently beat up looking wood floors are all the rage. They are all over Remodelista.

http://remodelista.com/posts/steal-this-look-mill-valley-brewworks

Ours are beat up not from years of bearing heavy duty machinery and laborers, just from spending the better half of a century covered with carpet and two layers of linoleum. There's some glue issues we need to address, etc., but overall they are way cooler than the splotchy taupe wall-to-wall we inherited.


We have been toying with the idea of sanding them down and painting them (white, in my wildest dreams), since staining them will just emphasize the fact that we've got two different woods going on (apparently there was a wall down the middle of the room in a past life. Now I'm thinking maybe we should just sand them down and leave them! It seems to be the thing to do. 


I had been in a hurry to find a cheap area rug or two, but now I realize I should take my time and find the perfect solution, instead of shelling out less money on a temporary piece that we'll want to upgrade later on. Learning things from Katy Elliott. If she can live through her renovation, I can certainly this through this.

http://remodelista.com/posts/walls-windows-floors-haynes-roberts-living-room-floor