There's a Good Dog comments: 83

Oh, this dog.

She likes to sleep on top of my clothes that I throw on the bed.

She yawns about forty-five times a day. She is the drowsiest, floppiest, cuddliest, kissiest puppers you've ever seen.

Unless of course someone makes a noise six blocks away and then she is on it.

For a moment. And then she goes right back to nappers.

What you don't want to see is the electrician, standing in your bathroom torn down to the studs, with his face in his hands, shaking his head, as I just did.

You want to see him smiling and nodding, and saying, "No problem! This will be very easy and inexpensive!"

But I love my new quilt so much. This is the Oregon Summer quilt that I started earlier this summer. Gayle, Amy's mom of Tillie Studio quilted it so beautifully for me. The backing is kind of a terra-cotta pink cotton gingham (printed gingham), and the binding (I did it by machine and then by hand) is actually a pink and white candy-stripe. It was pure pleasure making this one, and my knees were very, very happy with me (because I didn't make them crawl around pinning every square). The dog, however, missed laying on it while I was working on it. So she's making up for it now. People ask me how I keep pet hair off my furniture. And I just say, "Seventy-two dpi. It hides a multitude of sins."

Not kitters's carpet poms, but black dog hair, at least.

*Sorry I forgot to mention this — for those who have asked about sizing/quantities of fabric, etc., I used my Ollalieberry Ice Cream quilt pattern for this quilt. It is available to download in my web shop. Thank you!

Ugh. comments: 72

Let me just say that it is very disconcerting seeing an enormous backhoe thing (if that's what this thing is) digging an enormous hole a couple of feet away from your house, and coming very close to your very fancy new windows [bites nails bites nails bites nails].

I really did not have a great day yesterday, witnessing all of this. I tried to stay in the back of the house. But then I was informed that they are also digging a hole in the back yard today.

This is not a project that we chose to do; we were informed by the city this summer that we had to disconnect our (oxymoronishly named) party sewer, which was joined with our neighbor's back in 1927 when the houses were built, and reconnect individually into the city line. So it has to be done, but it's still giving me a stomach ache.

All that dirt came out of two giant holes under those orange cones.

Serenity nooooooooow.

My New Room comments: 384

Welcome, finally, to the new and improved Posie craft studio! Won't you please come in?

Looking north

Looking south

Looking east

Looking west

There is a lot to see here. I'll try to take it slow and show you around. But basically, this is it! This is my new room!

We began working on this room about a month ago now, I guess. The redecoration was a long time coming, since although we had cleaned and painted a few times over the past ten years (here is what it most recently looked like), it had long housed a jumbled collection of mismatched furniture, jerry-rigged shelving, utility tables and chairs that were the wrong working heights, carpet (blech), and just, in general, too much stuff for one room.

My inspiration for this new space was the work and homes of Swedish artists Carl and Karin Larsson, whose aesthetic I love and whose rooms have influenced me so much over the years. For such a long time I've had this dream of grayish-blue walls, red gingham curtains, and a red geranium in a terra-cotta pot. I really don't know what's taken me so long to make it happen. But I swear, when I put that pot on the windowsill, my very soul sighed with contentment.

It really did.

We started by painting the room Buxton Blue by Benjamin Moore which we got at the awesomely wonderful Pearl Hardware. I can't tell you how much I love this color. It is a deep grayish-blue, and changes like crazy with the light. You will see in the photos that this color looks different in almost every shot. That is because it looks different constantly and throughout the day (and also because I change my white balance a lot, depending on how I feel). Next we had the old yucky carpet ripped out and pretty, blond laminate flooring installed (by The Floor Store) in a color called Montgomery Maple.

Then we started going to IKEA. Constantly.

If your decorating inspiration is "Swedish country" and your budget is small (whose isn't) and your town, like ours, actually has an IKEA, life is good. IKEA came to Portland a couple of years ago now. It's arrival brought much-needed shelving to our dining room and bedroom several years ago and pretty much changed our entire house (I would say life) for the better. This time, for the studio, we got every single piece of furniture there. It was, I just have to say, an excellent experience. Andy built all of the furniture for me and he did such a great job. I'm sure we lucked out, but everything fits, everything is functional, everything is beautiful, everything went together. We only got in one small fight (again about a chair!!!) and I only had one IKEA freak-out during the negotiations about the chair when a) the music speaker was right over my head and playing way too loud, b) there were four teenagers zooming around in office chairs and crashing into each other immediately next to where we were having a very tense (i.e.: mostly silent) discussion about office chairs ourselves, and c) we were in the "as is" area, and thus, if we did purchase the exponentially cheaper chair and it turned out to be wrong, we could not return it. Suddenly I saw that Andy had the "I love this chair and only this chair" crazy-man glint in his eye (I'd seen it before). Unfortunately, his beloved chair was not the chair that I wanted, but my resolve (not to mention my legs) was getting wobbly; as this was my seventh trip to IKEA in two weeks, the commitment to a non-returnable chair turned out to be too much for me to handle at that moment. I (involuntarily) made a noise that sounded like, "Ay-eeeeeeeeeee!" [dolphin] and staggered out of As-Is back toward the warehouse, where I went and sat in the Poang display chair with my feet up and my eyes half-closed (while Andy did the rest of the shopping for track lighting [aren't I clever???] ). I think it was about forty-five minutes before I could move.  I don't know if I was actually allowed to sit in that chair, since it was on one of those platform things that I think are supposed to be for display and not customer resuscitation, but none of the workers said anything to me about it. It was obvious I'd hit the proverbial IKEA wall. I was not a big fan of the Poang chair before, but now I am. It was lovely. (The next morning, I woke up feeling strong and healthy and said immediately, "Dang it! I need my chair!" [It was the red one.] Andy's mania had left him [and he'd discovered he needed four more track-lighting adapters]: IKEA trip #8, first thing Saturday morning, which included Swedish pancakes and thrills and giggles because the red chair was still there — yay!)

But let me back up. To figure out what I needed, first I measured the room and the width of each of the doorways (including the trim) and the windows. Then I got a piece of graph paper and made a floor plan, with each 1/4" square equaling 6". Then I went to IKEA (that was trip #1) with my little floor plan and a notebook and just, very slowly, walked through the whole store, thinking about what I might need. I took notes on lots of different pieces of furniture, figuring out dimensions and prices. I noted the names of everything that I liked and kept a list of Needs and Wants. Then I made little paper pieces that fit the footprint of each fixture and moved them around the floor plan until everything fit. I started with the thing that I knew I was definitely going to Need: SHELVES.

These are the Expedit shelving units in birch. They come in different configurations; I wound up with two 4 x 4s and two 4 x 2s on top of them. I also got three white door inserts, three red door inserts, and three Branas baskets to hide the stuff I didn't want to look at, like bills and mail and copy paper and plastic boxes of embroidery floss, etc. That gave me just enough room to slide in the Jonas desk to the left of the shelves; it holds my computer, printer, telephone, and stereo.

Anyway, so . . .

anyway

where was I.

Oh yeah. For my sewing machine, I knew I would need a sewing table that had leaves. The Leksvik dining table has two that extend it out another three feet, maybe. But I think this rectangular table is discontinued, because ours was on sale and I don't see it on the web site. It's a really nice color, though — kind of a grayish brown. I really like this color. For my fabric, I wanted a cabinet with glass doors on it — doors so I could shut them, glass so that I could still kind of see all the pretty fabrics. So, the Liatorp cabinet (which also matches our bedroom shelves and dining-room china cabinet). That just squeezed into one of the small walls. I didn't want anything to go in front of the windows. Lastly, the Varde kitchen island was a no-brainer, really. Mine is just like the one in the big photo (click the link), made up of two separate pieces: four big drawers on one, two shelves on the other, all topped by one big, beautiful wooden top. Which I have to oil every other day for a month (and which I do). This configuration was also shown as a sample on the showroom floor, so I had to get a sales associate to help me order exactly what was there, as it was totally confusing, and even the sales associate messed up the first time (so definitely get someone to help you, and then ask them to have another associate look it over, because you do not want to get this behemoth home and discover it's wrong). I don't see these exact pieces on the web site. My old table had no storage underneath it, so this thing is totally incredible to me. I only wish my kitchen was big enough to have one.

All of the lighting came from IKEA, as well. The Basisk pendants hang over the sewing machine. The Leran pendant hangs over the kitchen island. The table lamps are Januari bases with wicker shades that I can't find on the site, but they're in the stores right next to those bases. I have those all over my house right now. The French door curtains are here. The red gingham curtains came from Country Curtains. I guess I could've made those but I have made so many curtains for the windows of this house that if I never have to make another one it'll be too soon. I am done with making curtains. I took my screens out (we don't really need them in Oregon) and so the view through the windows is lovely and clear. Yum.

Directly behind the camera in the shot above is the sliding door to outside.

The view from my studio looking south, into the back yard. The pendant lamp is fake wicker and rated for outdoors. Love it.

It is glorious to be practically in the back yard while I work.

Clover Meadow absolutely loves the new studio. I really think she loves it as much as I do. I know Audrey would have loved it, too.

It's close to their favorite rock, and the back yard, and the dogs next door. Clover comes and goes all day long.

Doesn't she look like she loves it? :-)

We took these photos over the course of an hour or two. They don't show up chronologically here because I wasn't very organized in how I took them, and I am not very organized in how I'm showing them (I will put enlargements of all of these images up on Flickr when I have some time). But all this golden light started happening after about six p.m.

It is so beautiful just after six p.m.

Jeesh. That's nice. Love love love. Never want to leave.

Oh, I really, really love my new room. I love that Andy and Clover and the Avetts and I did it together. I love how it feels and how it makes the house feel. I love how it makes me feel. I am going to keep it soooooo clean you're not even gonna believe it. I swear I swear I swear. xoxo

A New Floor comments: 303

Friday was so great.

It's strange how much I love watching the Home being Improved.

I got a little emotional about it, actually. When we bought this house ten years ago, we had just come out of a truly terrible two years during which we'd moved to a city where we barely knew anyone, I'd almost immediately been in a serious accident, had six surgeries in six months, my parents had sold their house and moved across the country to be near us (and my sister and her family), and my father had passed away. So many things felt so suddenly broken or lost. I remember thinking that, like others in my family at that time, I was a refugee in my own life; almost everything in it (except, of course, for Andy) was new and strange and sad, and I felt utterly vulnerable, like a piece of dandelion fluff that might easily be lost to a strong wind. I barely recognized myself, or anything else. We had gotten married just the year before. Our wedding picture hung on the wall in our room, across from the bed. I remember staring at the picture and telling myself, over and over, "That is you. That is still you. That girl is still you." I told myself that every single day.

We started house-hunting in February 2000, after about two and a half years of living in Portland, and we didn't really enjoy it at all. I was surprised, because I had wanted my own house all of my life, but when it came time to find one, we weren't really in the right shape for hunting. Nothing on the market in our neighborhood (and we wanted to stay in our neighborhood) was even close to being right, and, if it was "right" it wasn't affordable. It was dreary and pouring rain outside. I just wanted the whole thing to be over with as quickly as possible so I could lay down.

A few weeks into it, this one came on the market. It definitely wasn't updated, but it wasn't really a fixer, either. Apparently there had been one couple before us that had gotten there first and had really wanted it, but as they pulled their car out of the driveway they bashed into the rock wall that edges the (very skinny and slopey) driveway; they drove away and never came back. We saw it immediately after them, and it was one of those things where you walk in and after one nanosecond you're like, "Oh, okay — this is fine — where do I sign?" It was clear from the front door that this one would be fine. But then when we went to the back and saw the studio (which was built as an addition by the previous owner who used it as a painting studio, and which is why we've just always called it "the studio"), it was obvious to both of us that this was a room that could help build a new life. You wouldn't necessarily think that one room could do that. But oh! how it did. At times even this (average-sized) house felt much too big and overwhelming (and we had almost nothing in the way of furniture, or curtains, or curtain rods, or pictures, or . . . anything that we needed to fill a whole house). But the studio was my first real room of my own. And it became my world, at a time when the real one outside seemed too scary and uncertain.

Cleaning out this room this week, ten years since arriving in it, has brought it all back to me, somehow. Those particular days feel so far away now. They left behind, after all was said and done, a residue of overwhelming gratitude. Our life has changed so much here. Being in this room with Andy again, moving, cleaning, building, dreaming, figuring, fixing, fussing, listening to music, talking, laughing, watching him. I love it so much. We have done this a lot by now, in many different spaces together. But this room is special, and both of us feel that. I leaned out the kitchen window and said to Floor Installer Guy #1 as he was cutting a board with the big saw on Friday, "This is one of the best days of my entire life!!!"

He goes, "Wow."

[Cue Andy sputtering.]

When the floor was in and the Guys were cleaning up, I said excitedly to Floor Installer Guy #2, "Don't you think this the prettiest room in the whole wide world?!?"

Photo by Andy Paulson, Master Mechanic.

He goes, "Er . . . top ten" [more giggling from Andy]. Guy #1, who was outside, said, "Does anyone know that there is a dog out here?" indicating Clover Meadow Paulson, who was outside sniffing around unsupervised near the wide-open back gate. I glanced up and said, "Oh, yeah, but I can't watch her because I only have eyes for my new floor!" [looking around smiling, pointing out new floor to Guys].

!!!

So. So. Wonderful.

On Saturday, I sat in a state of bewildered awe/borderline catatonia while Andy built all of the furniture. He insisted that it would be easier without my help. SPECTACULAR. Then he went back to work yesterday (Sunday) to "get some rest" (har). I started putting things away yesterday and got about one-third of the way done. I still can't believe this is my room.

Buxton Blue comments: 70

Kruger's Farm; Thursday, July 15, 2010

We had a wonderful long weekend. It was our thirteenth anniversary yesterday, and Andy took a few days off, which was fantastic. We mostly moved stuff out of the studio (it's now all over the house, agh) and repainted it in preparation for the flooring to go in on Friday. This room re-do is going to be a project that probably takes a lot longer than we thought (or I, at least, thought). There will be six (one of them gigantic) pieces of furniture that will have to be put together next week, after the floor is finished, and then I'll start slowly moving stuff back in. The new furniture will be all about storage — cabinets, drawers, shelves, more cabinets, more drawers, more shelves.

The Avett Brothers, McMenamins Edgefield; Saturday, July 17, 2010 

Storage is the greatest. I twitch with glee just contemplating it. It's kind of hard to figure out what you need or how it's going to work. I just figure: drawers, and doors. I'm kind of over the open shelving thing. There will be some, but hopefully not too much.

Nostrana restaurant; Monday, July 19, 2010

Since it is so messy here right now, we tried to get away from the house as much as possible: pool, farm, Avett Brothers show, IKEA (natch), dinner out for anniversary. We saw Scotty (I call him Scotty) Avett by the back gate as we were leaving the show on Saturday night, and we called to him (he was only about twenty feet away): "Thank you Scotty!!! We love you guys! Come back again, okay?" And Scotty said, "Thank you, thank you very much," very sincerely, and waved. That was extremely exciting. Love those Avett boys!!! I thought the show was too short, personally, but seeing Scotty by the back gate made up for it. I just love them so much that I think they should play for four or five hours. And also play all my favorite songs. And also read my mind to know what all my favorite songs are. That's all.

Buxton Blue studio; Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I hear Andy and Clover Meadow waking up upstairs. Time to get to work. I think I might repaint the trim today.

An Oregon Summer Quilt comments: 51

Coming together nicely (even if I did spend all day at the pool yesterday — oops).

24 by 28 patches, each 3.5" square when finished.

I hang it on the curtain rod over my sliding door while I'm working on it because I like the way the light looks when it shines through.

Get ready to say goodbye to this color. It was fun while it lasted but I am very ready for something else. (Paint, lantern, and slipper info on my FAQ page.)

Oh sweet dog. She stayed in this exact position for about ten minutes. It reminded me of playing Statue when I was a kid. She's so dang sweet. Her little leathery nose. It's the perfect temperature of cold on a hot day. Mwah mwah mwah. Love you so much, Clover M. You make me laugh every day.

Influences comments: 152

Seamstress

Thank you for all of your kind comments yesterday, and for just indulging me, in general. Talking about your process is sort of like telling someone about the dream you had the night before: You're sloshing through, explaining as much to yourself as to anyone else, trying to put your finger on exactly what it was for a moment, in case there's something there you might need to know. . . .

As I've been scoping out the house for locations—almost all of the photos for this book, like my first one, will be taken here in our house, with our own paint colors and furniture (with all its nicks and scuffs), with our own stuff propping shots, with our own beds and chairs and cups and pup in the background—I've been noticing how much the paintings of Swedish artist Carl Larsson have influenced our home, and my sense of the spaces I try to create.

Brita's Little Nap

I first encountered the work of Carl Larsson (1853-1919) when I was a freshman at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, the small liberal arts college that both Andy (and his mom, his dad, his sister, his aunt, his grandparents, his great-aunts and uncles, and maybe other relatives I don't even know about) and I went to and where we met, almost twenty years ago now (egads).

(I should pause here to say how much we love— like LOVE love—our school, and what a special, awesome place it is in too many ways to count, if you're looking for a great school to go to or to send someone to.)

Tucked into the hills on the east bank of the Mississippi River, Augustana was founded in 1860 by Swedish settlers, and its Scandinavian heritage is keenly felt in every aspect of place, from philosophy to decor. I was raised in an Italian-Catholic family, but my father was a Scandiaphile—he maintained a lifelong interest in Norse legend and culture (our dogs were named Odin and Loki), and his childhood best friend (my godfather) was a Swede, and it was my dad's idea that I go to school at Augustana. I just wanted to go to a small, pretty school in a small town. But people said it was a good school, and when I visited it seemed very nice, and it was very pretty, so off I went. One day, early on, in the bookstore I found a postcard:

Flower Window

Though I had never heard of the artist, I thought it was such a sweet painting, and for years I had Flower Window hanging on my bulletin board. (Years later I realized that if anyone has seen one of Carl Larsson paintings, there's a good chance it's this one!) At Augustana, I wrote my senior thesis on the painters Arthur Rackham and John William Waterhouse, and in that I explored how the domestic details—the calicos and cups and saucers—in those artists' paintings contributed to the realism part of the magical-realism they evoke. I was always interested in this notion. I need to look for that paper and see if I still have it. It was a year-long research project that I really loved writing.

There was a big bay window filled with geraniums at the south end of the hall on the first floor of Old Main, and that's where the English Department was. I worked as a student assistant for all four of my years there. I loved the department secretary, Joan Robinson, light as a bird, full of nervous, flitting energy and a million belly laughs. She had been there for many years, and was older than my own mother, but we hit it off fantastically, and my friendship with her and many of the English department faculty was a huge part of my happiness at school. Grinning, twinkly eyed Dr. Tweet (who looked like a character in one of the folk tales he loved, and who once, when he was cleaning out the garage, gave me the best three-speed bicycle I have ever, ever had) held court most afternoons on the sofa outside the department—he had a huge fan club of students and professors alike—and he tended the ancient geranium collection, and taught me that the plants liked to dry out and then be given a nice, long drink. I see now that he was probably conjuring Larsson's painting. It was always warm there. It was always quiet, and friendly, and filled with laughter, and learning. When I think of some of my happiest times, I think of that bright corner, and those flowers, and those friends, and how my life changed then.

Lisbeth Reading

Though the years, and especially now that I am so far from that time and that place, I see that Larsson's paintings have heavily influenced the kind of home I have tried to create—those delicate, clean colors; the many blues and greens, always punctuated by red; the windows; the tiny details that seem to matter; the people and pets given space to linger; the warmth and calm—all those things so vital in Larsson's paintings seem to guide my vision of homemaking.

Lazy Corner

Papa's Bedroom

Bridesmaid

Ingrid W.

Lisbeth with Yellow Tulip

Crayfishing

By his own account, Larsson had an atrocious childhood, filled with poverty, neglect, and hardship. At age 30, he married artist (and skilled needlewoman) Karin Bergoo, and five years later her father gave the couple a small house, Lilla Hyttnas (Little Furnace), in the country. I love this description of how the house came to be the Larssons. Carl and Karin would have eight children of their own, and go on to lovingly design, add on to, and decorate the house for the next several decades, making it one of the best-loved artist's homes in the world. In hundreds of watercolors, Larsson documented the everyday domestic activities of his family and homelife against the backdrop of Lilla Hyttnas, and in those happy images it's clear that the house is both his canvas and his muse. I love this idea—that place, and space, can change your life—and I know it is true for me, as well.

In the Garden

I didn't really realize I was doing it, but when I looked at all of the photos from the shoot, I could see that in some way I'd been channeling, and pulled out my Larsson books to look. Sure enough. I see it, and am pleased. All those influences surface, like watching a photo in the developing tray: I come from places, and people. I see them there.

Window Wonderful comments: 147

I write tonight while seated in front of three lovely, open windows. Through them a beautiful breeze blows, and I hear the sounds of leaves rustling, a plane going over, children playing. From here on my sofa, now I can smell my neighbor's barbecue, the wet dirt from the planters on the porch, and the new paint on the new windows. For the first time in eight years, I have open windows in my living room and dining room. I'm so very happy today!

Where once was a big, plate glass, unopenable picture window, we now have three side-by-side vertical casements that open out. They don't need storms; they also have beautiful removable wooden screens on the inside (not shown, being painted). (These photos are a little dark because I am trying to get the detail in the windows, so I take the light-meter reading there, and not in the room as I normally would. Not sure how to get both lit properly. . . .) The above photo shows the windows in their "closed" position because they are kind of tricky to photograph without getting a lot of reflections and lines and stuff. But really, I've had all six of them open (there are three more in the living room) all day, even though it was about fifty degrees this morning. I love them so much.

Here they are open. Don't you just want to sit down and read a book there, and listen to the birds sing? I'm late posting today because that's basically all I've been doing.

(I'm telling you, I just walk in and find them looking cute like this. Spontaneous cuteness is a trait we try to require all of our pets to have, 'cause it just makes your pillows and your windows look so much better when you're taking pictures for your blog, you know? It's nice to have a cute, cooperative little puppers sitting in front of pillows and windows going, "Oh, okay, what are we going for today? Charmingly inquisitive? Not a prob. [Click.]")

Oh, puppers, you are such a sweet darling little miss.

She likes them. So do I. I told the installers yesterday that it was one of the best days of my life. Then they felt sorry for me, I think. But it was true. I have light and air now. It's such a privilege. Living without air in this room where I spend so much of my life has given me a whole new appreciation for the open window. It really is a gift.

Our New Sofa comments: 32

I'm excited, because in a few weeks — maybe any day now, I've kind of lost track — we'll be getting our new sofa. It's called the "Nelson" by Van Gogh. It looks like this, but in sort of a mouse-brown/gray Ultrasuede. I got it at Sofa Table Chair from my friend Susan (her new store out in West Linn is so cool). Right now she has a coupon for 15% off of any custom order sofa!

I had very specific requirements for my sofa, and that very specifically limited the sofa I could have. Firstly, I had to have a "tightback" with no back pillows, since my dog sits on top of those while looking out the window and squashes them flat. Secondly, it had to be dirt-colored non-stainable fabric, because we are a dirty family. I also told her I wanted the "big butt" cushion — mine will have extra padding or something, for big butts that tend to . . . stay put . . . for long periods of time (like mine). I'm going to ask my accountant if I can write off the sofa as my second home office. I really didn't feel sooooo bad about buying a new sofa because, you know, it's for work. I certainly don't spend a dime on, like, work clothes. And our old sofa has basically been reduced to a pile of pillows. It is a squashy, quilt-covered, very-low pile of pillows. My sister said it reminds her of a baby's crib. A giant baby's crib for me. I can't stand it anymore. I can barely get out of it anymore. So, I'm very psyched about the Nelson. I'd better call and see when it's supposed to come — I think it takes six to eight weeks. I can't remember when I ordered it but it was definitely sometime in June.

When we got back from camping, we had houseguests here at the house, Andy's aunt and uncle and their grandson, for the rest of the weekend. Their arrival reminded me of their last visit, several years ago, which had a funny story about our old sofa. In the morning, Uncle George, Aunt Nancy, and I were sitting around the living room, drinking coffee and watching the Today show. It was 2004, an election year, so I remember the candidates were debating. I was sitting on the right side of the sofa, kind of curled up with my elbow on the arm of the sofa, leaning toward the TV. But my elbow had been hurting me lately, so at that very moment I was sort of rubbing it, and straightening it, and massaging it. I often think I'm getting tennis elbow from all the crocheting I do, with my elbow propped up too high on the arm of the sofa.

So I was sitting there rubbing my elbow and feeling a little worried when George, who was watching the candidates talk to Matt Lauer, turned to me and said, "Alicia, if you don't mind my asking, which way do you lean?" And I said, still rubbing my elbow, thinking he'd read my mind, "Well, it's so funny you should ask because I was just thinking, you know, I have been leaning so much to the right [pointing to the arm of the sofa] but my elbow is killing me lately, so I'm wondering if I should move over to the left, and lean that way? I mean, I don't know. Will that help?" I figured he'd have some magic answer, seeing as how he'd just miraculously asked the question I'd been silently asking myself. I looked up and George and Nancy were staring at me uncomprehendingly. It occurred to me that they meant lean politically, not physically. Ohhhhh! I was laughing too hard to answer. The world's going to hell in a hand-basket, but my elbow hurts, so, you know, ow, me and my elbow.

Raise your hand if you saw that one coming, 'cause I sure didn't.

Mmmkay, playing catch-up today, trying to answer emails, phone calls, get my lists together, write, clean the studio, get myself together. I haven't checked out anyone's blog in two months — it's awful. I miss it. That's my R&R time and I'm missing it and y'all terribly. So I'm going to try and get my act back together. I really want to be all caught up this week. I want to make some new pillows for my new sofa!

Going More Swedish comments: 58

This past weekend I thought about paint a lot. Fall seems to be painting time around here, which makes sense, as we anticipate all the warm, cozy nesting that'll happen as soon as it starts raining. We spent all of Saturday morning at Miller Paint, getting new colors for the bathroom (aqua) and kitchen (gray), which haven't been painted in almost six years and are looking kind of yucky. This is the "dining" room, last Christmas. I say "dining" because it's really supposed to be a living room, but last year around this time we switched the living room into what should be the dining room, and put the dining room table (which we don't sit at very often) into the living room. It's a better arrangement — we have one of those front doors that opens directly into this room, with no real entry way or anything like that, so it was hard to arrange living room furniture, I thought. The only problem now is one of semantics, as in, "Where's Audrey?" "She's in the living, er — I mean the old living/new dining room , er — over there. C'mere Auds!"

Here it is last Thanksgiving, with the table pulled out. I like the room, but now that I've lived with it for a year, I feel it is too dark, so I've been looking through every old issue of Domino, trying to figure out what would be better. What I like about Domino is that it really seems to show rooms that successfully combine both vintage and modern styles. What I'm thinking for this one is Swedish-ish: pale gray for the walls, and lots and lots of whites/neutrals (I have cream curtains in storage), and lots of modern accessories, to temper the fussiness. Like a really modern, simple hanging light fixture — a glob of unfussy white Christmas lights? I think I saw something somewhere that was like an embroidery hoop with lights wrapped around it and hanging down — swagged over the table. I think I'm also going to top that table with a 60" round piece of plywood and leave it more "in" the room, instead of plastered parallel to the wall, where it sort of functions as a big desk. The plywood and the paint are the only things I want to spend a dime on.

See those blobs on the fireplace? They're plaster roses that I hot-glued onto the bricks and then piped plaster vines and leaves around them. The roses were made with plaster of Paris put into plastic candy molds — I did this about five years ago and got the idea from the Christopher Lowell show, so I can't point you toward better directions. What I will say is do not use hot glue to put them up. These are never coming off, honestly. I think we'll have to ruin the brick to do it. So, cute idea but not very responsible. I don't have any other ideas for putting them up there but maybe someone else does.

The reason I don't like this color is that in real life it too-closely matches the color of this room, which is directly opposite and connected by a big arch:

The colors on the paint chips looked hugely different to me, but in the rooms the shadows on the light color are almost exactly the same as the highlights on the dark color and visually it looks like one long rectangle of the same shade. At a dinner party we went to on Saturday, our friends confessed to testing twenty-six different colors of white for their kitchen cabinets. And it was worth it, they said. Eeeeeyikes. That will never be me, alas — no patience. I'm more of a pick-it-in-the-paint-store-and-hope-for-the-best kinda girl. I definitely don't always get it right, but what can I say.

And also, something I've been meaning to ask, does anyone know if there's some kind of paint-able cord-cover thing, or conduit that I can get to deal with those white cords on the right side of the photo? For some reason, this plug is three feet up the wall.

Don't you just have to wonder: Who thought that was a good idea?

Hurry IKEA, hurry! (We're getting one in Portland — anyone know when?)