Hallway Before and After

Last time I left off I hadn’t shown any progress on my hallway.

Well I’ve painted it ‘Chocolate Froth’ with a steel blue stripe at head height. I didn’t like that blue at first, but with the art hanging I like it a bit more.

I moved my art around, finally hung up my Wilco concert poster, and framed my Standing at the Edge of the Water print from 20×200. That was an ordeal. I went to Michael’s to get a custom mat and never heard back from them to come pick it up when it was ready. I finally went to the store yesterday and it was sitting in the back with a mat that was cut incorrectly and a note saying that the frame I picked out would not work with the mat. Thanks for notifying me. Luckily, I talked to the manager and she was very friendly and gave me a discount on the new frame I picked out. That’s good customer service.

So, it’s not an amazing transformation, but it does brighten everything up, and I love looking at my happy little art gallery. I’m still thinking about getting a mirror custom made for the door at the end of the hallway. That will brighten it up even more.

-Liz

Boring Hallway on Apartment Therapy

Hello there! My boring hallway is on Apartment Therapy as a ‘Good Question.’

Check out the page to see what Apartmetn Therapy readers would do with my hall. There are some great suggestions, and a few hit the nose on what I decided to do.

I painted it this weekend. You’ll have to wait a few more days to see what I did, but there is a quick description in the AptTherapy post!

-Liz

Blah Hallway

I’m back! I bet you didn’t even notice that I was gone for nearly two months, did you?

It’s a rainy day and Brentan’s out of town and I am here thinking of things to change at home while I’m alone. My biggest peeve right now? My boring blah white hallway. See exhibit A:

I like the prints that are on the wall, but otherwise, I like nothing.

What would you do to jazz it up and make it fit in with the rest of the house?

I’m thinking possibly: a chair rail with different colors on either side, a chandelier, a big thick racing stripe in some fun color, or just lots and lots of frames and photos.

Please give me your thoughts!

-Liz

Heart Rocks

Heart rock collection - California

I am attempting to take photos of all the rooms in my house and today, I will post some pics of my red powder room.  I am getting tired of the red and will probably soon change it but is has served well as a great backdrop for Christmas decorations, Valentines Day doo-dads and even Fourth of July kitsch. The thing I love most about this room is the little 2 inch ledge on the cap of the wainscoting.  I have collected heart shaped rocks for a number of years and love to display them in the bathroom. My son, Sam, took the photo of rocks in his hand while we were walking along the shore of Lake Superior one summer day. The  room is full of wonderful memories of trips to Costa Rica, Florida, Texas, California, and my cabin near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

I’m thinking about Valentines Day… and about giving a special heart shaped stone to someone I love to let them know how much they “rock” ! -Peg

A Brief History of: Pendant Lamps

If you’ve read any of my posts, you know that I love vintage and vintage-inspired interiors, especially mid-century and California ones. After writing the post about how everything is new again from the Edward Scissorhands movie stills, I’m inspired to look a little more in depth into vintage and vintage inspired homes. I am hoping to have short series of a few posts that examine some pretty elements from homes in the 1950s and 60s.

For this one, I’m going to look at sculptural pendant lamps. I was looking around for some vintage interior shots and found a ton to use on the Life Magazine photo archive site.

I like this living room and want to have it in my next house. The wood ceilings, walls of windows, patios on both sides, and overall laid-back California feel of the place seems so livable. (It’s actually in Martha’s Vineyard!) This house is so pretty, and you can see more pictures of it over at The Selvedge Yard.

But the focus of the picture is the pendant lamp in the foreground. I see these all the time these days. Where and how did they originate?

Pendant lamps apparently date back to ancient Greece, where they used to hang animal fats and perfumes in clay pots with wicks. Things have come a long way since then–more modern (from the middle of the century) pendant lamps have been inspired by industrial versions from the 1920′s and 30′s, like the one below. These are my favorite pendants right now.

1920's Pendant Lamp from DesignBoom

They also appear on either side of the bed in this 1954 vintage ad for Armstrong flooring.

Bedroom featuring pendant lamps from an ad, via Retro Renovation

Nowadays, pendant lamps are still inspired by industrial ones,  but they’re also made of colorful glass, can manifest themselves as huge chandeliers, or discount versions from Ikea, like the one below.

Ikea Pendant Lamp

Most home bloggers have probably written about pendant lamps, since they are ubiquitous in design. I like Michelle’s vintage industrial inspired one over her table, from Decor and the Dog:

Rustic Vintage Pendant Reproduction from Decor and the Dog

You can DIY a woven wooden pendant lamp, like they did on Poppytalk:

Poppytalk's DIY Pendant

I’d love to install an uber modern, uber high end pendant over my dining table some day, like this one, via Freshome:

Modern Pendant via Freshome

Or this fun pink one from Kartell, via Design*Sponge:

Pink Pendant via Design*Sponge

Emily from Go Haus Go even put in ‘pendant lamps’ in her dollhouse for the I’m a Giant Challenge! They are made from Christmas ornaments.

Dollhouse pendants from Go Haus Go

 

To be honest, I don’t have any pendant lights in my home. Maybe that’s why I’m slightly enamored with them. Do you have pendant lamps in your home? Any vintage ones? I’d love to hear about your connection to these historic pieces!

-Liz

Inspired by: Edward Scissorhands

Sometimes I get inspired. From movies and stuff.

But they aren’t movies that you’d usually be inspired by. Like Edward Scissorhands.

Now, I saw Scissorhands a long time ago, but came across this photo the other day on the funny blog, Shlooby Kitten (which you should definitely check out):

I loved the decor. The pink carpet and walls (harking back to my childhood bedroom, perhaps?), gold accents, and the perfectly complimentary green foliage wallpaper in the kitchen.

I found some more screenwhots of Edward Scissorhands (from the blog Curiouser and curiouser!), and the decor is fabulous, and is surprisingly current.

Hello mid-century mod, sunburst mirrors, weird wall sculptures, and keys on walls!

I think Emily Henderson used a crushed velvet couch in one (or several?) of her Secrets of a Stylist episodes. Granted, it was recovered.

How about an upholstered, tufted headboard?

And by the way, if all my neighbors decided to manicure their lawns and take all the trash out of their front yards, my neighborhood would look like this, pastel colors and all:

What weird things have you been inspired by recently?

-Liz

Just About Home’s Hot Projects of 2011

Wow, we wrote about some really cool and creative projects here on Just About Home over the last year! I managed to convince my mom to write about some of the transformative things she’s been doing to her home of 25 years, and I’ve written about a few things that I’ve been learning how to do in my first home.

To recap the year, here were our top 10 projects of 2011 by pageviews!

10. Zinc Succulent Planters

I got these awesome planters from my husband for my birthday this year and fixed them up, Sunset magazine style, to welcome guests into the front door of my house. They are pretty sweet, and were simple to do with a quick trip to the local garden center! I’ll tell you again that I <3 succulents, and love living in a part of the country where they thrive.

9. Laundry Lines

My mom’s laundry posts got quite the traffic on the blog, too. How could they not, with this awesome pull out laundry line system in her laundry room? She dries most of her laundry right here, even in the freezing cold Minnesota winters. This pic got a bit of action on Pinterest too! Plus, laundry is more fun when you have pretty clothes pins.

8. Guest Room Makeover

Oh this was a fun and longstanding project this year. It was great to tackle a fully thought out design scheme on a tight $200 budget, but I did it! I just kept imagining I was on HGTV, and it was mostly smooth sailing. I think this was my favorite project of the year! It also was fun to make the few accessories for this room– the pelmet, the paint chip art, the bench, the mirror border…

7. Reupholstering a Mid-Century Modern Club Chair

This project finally brought the two Just About Home bloggers together in the same place for an epic project not often tackled by your every day blogger! YES! This was extreme reupholstery!

In November my parents came to visit, and in addition to a fantastic trip to wine country, my mom taught me how to do my first real upholstery job. I am so satisfied and proud of this chair. It’s the first thing you see when you come in my front door.

6. Korin’s Modern Geometric Living Room Design

I helped out my pal, Korin, to decorate her new condo, and this was the inspiration for her main living area. She ended up going in a slightly different direction (I think it’s more my taste than hers!), but it was fun to put my thoughts together to collaborate with her.

I gotta do more mood boards in 2012. They are fun.

5. Pink Christmas!

You must remember this one, right? It was just last week!  Pink Christmas was popular here, with my family and friends, and popular on the blogosphere. I don’t think many other bloggers had a pink Christmas, did they?

Pink Christmas was mostly celebrated by my pink tree, and my pink accented table decor.

4. Garden Curb Appeal

I had to remind myself what this project was…

Tackled early in the year, Brentan and I did some landscaping in the front of the house. This project was hard, manual labor. We dug up old stumps, re-set the brick border, and planted some fun plants (yay billy buttons and kangaroo paw!).

I wish I could say it still looks like this, but it needs a little TLC to not look so overgrown. The good thing is though, you can’t see those ugly sprinkler pipes any longer!

3. Yellow Lattice Pillow

This may have been the easiest project all year. Fabric scraps+ugly ikea pillow+ one hour= PRETTY!

I think I put a little too much algebra in this post (but math is important!). It turned out ok though, since it is number 3 on the list.

2. Faux Bois Floor

My mom showed off some of her updates to her cabin in northern Minnesota. It is button cute, and tiny. Sometimes it seems like you can do more with small spaces. Like you couldn’t make a faux bois floor in your 6,000 sf mini mansion. But a 200 sf cabin seems doable!

1. Painted Floor Cloth

And the number one most popular project in 2011 was the PAINTED FLOOR CLOTH! The combination an anthropologie inspired pattern, DIY spirit and good timing made this a star on our blog, and on Pinterest. So thanks for all the links here.

Thanks everyone for reading in 2011, and I hope you’ll be back in 2012 for even more epic projects, how-tos, DIYs, and fun times!

-Liz

Pink Shimmery Christmas Dinner Table

I thought I’d share with you my Christmas dinner table.

This year, Brentan and I were orphans in the Bay Area– neither of our families came to visit, and we couldn’t make the trip to see them in Minnesota or the East Coast. However, it turned out we hosted a dinner for 9 other Christmas orphans in our tiny dining area. The party included friends from India, Australia, and Sweden!

I continued my pink and shimmery theme from my Christmas tree to my Christmas table. I bought some cheap bouquets of white, green, red, and pink flowers at the grocery store and combined them all in three different thrift store vases for a colorful and festive look.

I used my nice wedding china and flatware, and typed up place cards on some pink cardstock using my typewriter.

We cooked up a feast that included a Christmas ham, duck, beet salad, brussel sprouts,  green salad, stuffing, curry, chocolate mousse, cheesecake, cookies, and an apple pie! It was a festive dinner, that lasted long into the night with wine and a few games of Cranium (which I bet you wouldn’t realize is very American-centric!)

I hope you had a very nice Christmas or weekend doing whatever you did!

-Liz

Hosting Pink Christmas!

Well, I had a killer pink holiday party last night. Thanks to those of you who came!

After a few busts, I’ve learned a few things about hosting a good party. Here are a few of my secrets. Shhhh…

1. Send invites early. I wish I could have spur of the moment parties easily, but my friends are busy and need to plan.

2. Personally send invites. Sending a Facebook invite or evite sure is easy, but it doesn’t beat a personal email or phone call. The more you talk about the party, the more likely friends are to come!

3. Add mood lighting. I hadn’t even thought about a lighting scheme, but a room feels more intimate and party-like with low lights and candles.

4. Avoid the circle of death! Make sure you have significantly more people than seating and creating things to do in different zones of the party area. I spread out wine and snacks throughout my living room and kitchen.

5. Don’t cook. I love to cook good food, but a cocktail party is not time to show off your skills. I bought veggies, cheese, and made a bit of guacamole which were all ready to go 15 minutes before guests arrived. Stress free, and allowed me to chat rather than fuss over food.

6. Have something to do. We had a little competition over who brought the best bottle of wine. Guests tasted different wines over the night and voted on their favorites. It’s a great reason to mingle and chat. The highlight (and competition winner) was a bottle of pineapple wine that was made by a guest!

Without further ado, behold my fantastic pink Christmas tree!

-Liz

 

Pink Vintage Christmas

I’m dreaming of a pink Christmas!

I’m hosting a holiday party this weekend and I came up with a theme last night: Pink Vintage Christmas. But shhhh, my husband thinks its a pink hipster Christmas. Well, the two can be merged pretty easily, but the vibe will be totally non-stuffy and fun.

I’m mostly inspired by this Martha Stewart image, and a few others I posted on my Pink and Shimmery Christmas pinterest board:

And also inspired by a party that was featured in Martha Stewart Living magazine this month, that I can’t find online. But it was shimmery and pink, too!

I haven’t finished decorating yet, but I’ll post some festive pictures of the party.

-Liz