Beauty Before Function

I was going through some pictures from back in the day when I only had a film camera, or was in between digital cameras, and it brought back some good memories, so I thought I would scan some. This was a really cool drainpipe that I saw in Seattle when I went there in 2006 for a friend's wedding.

Flowers are popping up everywhere...

I was reading a new favorite blog of mine, Threadbangers, which is all about being crafty without looking like you're 80, and I came across these pictures of the Fendi Spring 2009 collection, with the flowers. I am in love! Boyfriend isn't quite as enthused about it, but he just has to accept that I have weird taste.


The funny thing is that I was actually already planning on doing something similar. I had come across this post on Design*Sponge, and thought the lamp shades looked really cool, especially the one on the left. There just happened to be instructions, so I thought I might try something similar, but on a shirt. I went to my favorite fabric store a few days later and picked up some felt in varying shades of blue, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Yet another thing to add to the list of projects.


(Top photos: Fendi, Bottom photo: Design*Sponge)

Food: Ray's Hell-Burger Edition

So boyfriend has been talking about this burger place in Rosslyn for months now, but I'm always reluctant to leave my haven of DC and enter the Commonwealth of Virigina. Last week, I finally did though, and went down to meet him after work for a wine tasting at Domasoteca (free wine tastings every Thursday). Afterwards, we walked over to Ray's Hell-Burger for dinner. It's definitely not a swanky place, but the burgers are good. It's the kind of place where you order your food, get a number, and then have to wait for people to leave so you can actually sit. I highly recommend it if you need to get you month's worth of cholesterol in one sitting, it was delicious.

Boyfriend had a burger with mushrooms, grilled onions and peppers, bacon, and mozzarella.


I had a burger with pepperjack cheese, grilled peppers and onions, and guacomole.

We also had these delicious little balls of goodness - they were called tater tots, but they were essentially cheesy balls of mashed potatoes deep fried. I was in heaven. We washed it all down with Old Dominion root beer, which they have on tap. Ray's Hell-burger gets one and half thumbs up, but only doesn't get the extra half a thumb because it's in Virgina. :)

My New Baby Has Arrived!

Unfortunately, Mom, this is the only grandbaby you will be getting out of me. But yes, my beautiful new camera came in the mail yesterday, and I had oodles of fun playing with it.

Boyfriend actually took the picture of the seedlings, but it shows that I can almost do macro with my lens! I now have to start saving all of my dollar bills for a new lens - I can't decide if I want a wide angle lens or a macro...oh well, I have plenty of time, as either of those will be more expensive than my camera and current lens combined.

Going Over to the Dark Side

I've been debating for a while now as to whether or not to go over to the dark side. And by that I mean succumb to the need for a fancy phone that can check the internet, pay my bills, wash my dishes, you name it. Well, the last one is wishful thinking, but you get the picture. I think I've pretty much made up my mind to take the plunge and get the Samsung Omnia.

So here comes the even trickier bit. Do I give up the only cell phone number I've ever had, and switch over to a phone number that actually makes geographical sense? It's not likely that I will move back to Grand Rapids any time in the near future, but I will miss the 616, it's true. Not only that, it's a huge pain in the butt to tell everyone I know that I've switched my phone number. It would make my life a little easier in that I could actually buzz people into my building, as it's not possible with a long-distance number. What do you think?

DC Design House 2009 - Odds and Ends

So there were a few things that I saw at the DC Design House that didn't really have anything to do with the design projects themselves, so I thought they deserved their own post. There was a little passageway in between the master sitting room and the master bedroom, with a closet off of it. I peaked in the closet, but from the looks of it, I wasn't supposed to. On the other side of the passageway though, were these really cool hooks. I didn't know what they were, but boyfriend in his vast pastor's kid knowledge said that they were organ stops. I know they will probably get rid of them in the redo, but I hope they keep them, as it's a cool thing to have in a rectory.

Another cool little doo-dad that boyfriend filled me in on was the peephole on the front door. I had never seen one that looked like that and I thought it was odd looking, but then I looked through it and I was amazed. It's essentially a tiny fisheye lens, and is so awesome. That's what I want on my door now.

I Can't Escape the Travel Bug

So, I told myself I wasn't going on any trips this year, as Botswana totally blew my budget last year. That is, until boyfriend tells me he found tickets to Honduras for $250 roundtrip. So now we are going in a week and a half down to visit his dad for 5 days. Once we bought our tickets though, boyfriend realizes his passport will be expiring soon. Sure enough, they won't let you in within six months of the expiration date. Mild rant - I think that's stupid. Essentially that makes your passport invalid for 6 months that they tell you it's really supposed to be valid. You really should get a six month grace period after your passport expires, is what I think. Anyway, so boyfriend had 2 options. One was to send it away for expedited service and hope they returned it within 2 weeks (we bought the tickets 3 weeks ahead of time). Option number two was just to wait until the 2 week window hit, where he could just go to the passport office and have them do it immediately. Since the passport office is downtown, he went with that option and will get his renewed passport on Wednesday, and will pay less than sending it away.

Second exciting news. I've been saving all my ones and the occasional five dollar bill for a while now, so that I can buy a digital SLR camera. It's been taking a while, but I was about $75 away from my goal when boyfriend mentioned this weekend that maybe I could get the camera. Hmmm....the wheels turn in my head. If I keep saving my dollars and fives, I won't be able to buy it until June. But what's the point of going on a tropical vacation if I can't fully capture it in photographs? So I bit the bullet and ordered my Nikon D40, which will be arriving on Wednesday. :) I'm so excited. It was a bit hard for me to give up my Canon loyalty, but it's pretty much universally accepted by the camera reviewing world that the D40 is the best bang for the buck, and is a great camera. I also like the fact it's not ginormous, like boyfriend's D80. Also, there is the added advantage that I can now steal boyfriend's lenses, since we will both have Nikons.

Funny story about that though. So I ordered the camera Saturday, so Sunday I thought I would go practice with boyfriend's old film SLR camera, so I know what I'm doing once I get my camera. I thought I was doing really well, writing down the settings for each picture, so I would know what they were once I got them developed. After about 3 pictures though, I realized that the film wasn't advancing, and it appeared to be staying on 4. Oh, I realized, that's actually the apeture number. Hmm....so where is the film number? I'm looking all over the camera and then realize that there is no actual film in the camera. Seriously, sometimes I'm a moron.

DC Design House 2009 - Bare Bones Tour, Part 2

As promised, I've continued the DC Design House tour, and here is the second floor, with their planned designs. I wasn't quite as impressed with the designs overall on the second floor as with the first, but primarily because it wasn't really my style. But, given that it is a church rectory with a traditional architecture, it makes sense.

Second Floor Plan

Going up the back stairs, the first room we came to was the Children's room. As the rectory doesn't actually have an inhabitants, this room was designed with a little girl who is at the Children's Hospital in mind, and will incorporate her artwork. The designer wasn't in the room, so I don't know all the details of the room, but I love the large floral fabric. It's interesting as well that the paint colors were almost identical to colors used in the Dining Room. It will look really nice in this room though, as it had 3 large windows and lots of light.

Children's Room

The next room along the hallway was a Sitting Room/Den. The design here was nice and classic, with a greek key theme. I want to steal the stool pictured bottom center though. In my old apartment building, people would frequently leave stuff they no longer wanted in the hallway, and it would invariably be gone in 24 hours. One night, I was walking up to my apartment with boyfriend, and there was a stool just like that, except not painted and gorgeous, a floor below me. I immediately said I had to have it, but boyfriend, always the voice of reason, said that I wasn't allowed because I already had way too much furniture for my studio apartment. I held my piece and thought I would just go get it in the morning. Alas, someone else saw how beautiful it was, and had snatched it up in the night. i'm still sad to this day, and boyfriend is no longer allowed to talk me out of things that I love. Rather, he's allowed to try, but I just don't listen. :)

Sitting Room Design Board

Connected to the Sitting Room was a Guest Bedroom. It currently has some crazy shelves all along one wall (the wall with the bed on the design board), so it will look quite different once it's all redone. It has a similar design sensibility to the Sitting Room and should flow well, but there were some elements I wasn't a huge fan of on the design board. Primarily it involved the bench at the foot of the bed being covered in some sort of white furriness, which I didn't like at all. I'm also not partial to sisal rugs, especially in a bedroom, but that was what was proposed for the room.

Guest Bedroom Design Board

Back out in the hallway, the next room is the Master Bathroom. It's a small room, as to be expected in an old house, and the design was fairly safe, mainly just updating the look of the room with brown colors, which I tend to stay away from.

Master Bathroom Design Board

Connected to the Master Bath is the Master Sitting Room, which was being designed by the same firm. I thought the proposed layout was a little strange for a private room such as a master sitting room, having two loveseats facing each other. I think though that they were already in there and are being reupholstered, as there were two loveseats that look very similar to the ones on the board already in the room. The one piece that I loved in this room was the end table, two of which will form a coffee table arrangement. The bright pop of lime green and shape of them will help add a more modern element to a house where the design is getting increasingly fuddy-duddy.

Master Sitting Room Design Board

And the final room of the house tour - the Master Bedroom! I really should have done the tour in the opposite direction, as this was my least favorite design concept of the house, but we'll see when it's done. I love peacocks incorporated into design (see my old bathroom for example), but I think they need to be done in rich jewel tones, more like art deco, rather than the toned-down watercolor look below. I think this room will end up looking more like a museum, rather than a functional room.

Master Bedroom Design Board

And so wraps up the 2009 DC Design House Bare Bones Tour. I am volunteering as a docent on May 2 (get in for free and get the inside scoop), so stayed tuned for the finished project!

DC Design House 2009 - Bare Bones Tour

So I realized it's already Thursday and I haven't posted any of the pictures I took of the DC Design House. As I mentioned before, on Saturday boyfriend and I rode our bikes down to Georgetown to check out the DC Design House, which is being renovated by 16 designers to raise money for the Children's National Medical Center. I had heard about it previously, and was surprised they were done already, but then I took a closer look at the website, and it turns out it is a pre-design house tour. Basically, the house was empty and the designers had set up their boards in each room and several of them were around to answer questions. It was pretty cool to see it all prior to the work, and nice that there weren't tons of people around, so I could actually ask questions.

The house itself is the rectory for St. John's Episcopal Church in Georgetown. Designers submitted their designs for 16 different spaces throughout the house and yard and were selected by the charity board and the church board. They have six weeks to complete their designs and it will be shown to the public starting April 18th.

First Floor Plan

Two spaces on the first floor (the front porch and the living room) did not have boards or designers to explain what was going on, so I will be curious to see what goes on there. The hallway area, which includes both the first and second floors, will have a gorgeous wallpaper covering sections of the wall, and I'm really tempted to get some of it myself, even though I have no idea what I would do with it. The whole pattern is on the postcard in the lower right of the picture, and it's fantastic.

Front Hall Design Board

Taking a left out of the hallway, next is the Library. The designer in here actually got to start a little early because she is putting in custom bookcases around the front window, and had to rip out some existing shelves. My favorite part of the library is the gorgeous Scandinavian Grandfather clock...I've dreamed of one like that for years and there are several examples in my house books.

Library Design Board

Walking out of the Library, next is the Dining Room. I'm curious to see how this one turns out, as the Designer indicated there will be lots of surprises. I think there will be some nice touches, such as the purple and clear crystal chandelier, but also think it will be a bit dark, as there wasn't a lot of natural light in the room. I felt it deserved a lighter color palette. The round design on the right side of the board is the pattern for dishes which she will set the table with, and the inspiration for the colors in the room. She does plan to paint the floors, which are currently a dark wood, with a white-washed kind of checkerboard pattern, so that should lighten it up a bit in the room.

Dining Room Design Board

Walking back into the Kitchen from the Dining Room, I see what in my mind will be the biggest transformation. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the actual rooms themselves as they currently are, but it will be a huge change. The main idea is to retain the functionality of a rectory kitchen, while creating a sort of Victorian, non-built-in furniture feel. It will be totally gutted, with the cupboards and the stove, fridge, and dishwasher fitting more gracefully into their surroundings. I noticed that the wallcolor, a pale blue called Skylight, was the same as the Library, so I asked if they had coordinated, and they hadn't. It will have a different effect in the Kitchen though, with the accent colors being red and green, as opposed to the beige and creams of the Library. The island, the centerpiece of the Kitchen, will look more like a freestanding piece of furniture, despite the sink and dishwasher being incorporated into it, and will be painted a deep, vibrant red.

Kitchen Design Board - Sketches and Floor Plan

Kitchen Design Board - Fabrics and Paints


Kitchen Design Board - Breakfast Nook


Kitchen Design Board - Island Concept

Just off of the Kitchen is a small space that will house the washer and dryer, designed in an English Garden style. I didn't get a picture of the design board, but it will look nice, with cabinets to hide the washer and drying themselves.

Back in the Hallway, there is a little powder room overlooking the garden. The design takes advantage of this fact by pulling in fresh tones of green and white. It isn't totally my style, but it suits the house.

Downstairs Powder Room Design Board

The garden is accessible from the Living Room and will have a facelift as well. It will have a couple of additional seating areas, but I'm a little skeptical about the way the three blue chairs are lined up along the fence. While aesthetically it's nice, I can't imagine having a conversation while sitting in that configuration.

Garden Design Plan

Shade Loving Plants for the Garden

As this post is getting quite long, I think I will leave the second floor for tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Exterior photo and floor plan courtesy of DC Design House.

A Completed Project! (mostly)

So I actually have a completed project to report. I have had a bookshelf for a while that I no longer had any use for, and on one end the veneer was pretty chewed up.

Bookshelf in its pre-project form

I was thinking to myself what I could do with the bookshelf, and it popped into my head that I could turn it into a bench. But it was way too long to just make it a bench the way it was, and the one end was crappy looking anyway, so I thought it should be cut in half.

I sanded down the end I wanted to keep, marked off where I wanted the cut, and let boyfriend cut away with the circular saw. This is where it gets a bit tricky, as it's a somewhat cheap bookcase, and it's hollow. So that left two openings in the end where the cuts were made. More on that later.

Ready for the first cut

Obviously, if I just painted it and left it like it was, it would just look like a small bookshelf on its side. So I wanted some feet for the bench. This part turned out to be more difficult than I thought, as my normal supplier, the Home Depot, did not have a good supply at all of feet. I did a little internet research and came up with some gorgeous feet, but couldn't stomach paying $25 per foot, considering I paid like $15 for the bookshelf on Craigslist. This was all shortly before going home for Christmas, so I thought I would just wait until then and make my parents drive me to every home improvement store in northern Michigan until I found the perfect feet. That turned out to be the trick and Lowes had some great feet for $6 apiece.

The feet came with nifty screw things in them, so boyfriend got out my cordless drill and drilled some holes in the bottom. I then glued and screwed them in, and got to work painting. I was originally going to paint the bench red, to match my dining chairs, but I decided to go more neutral and paint it glossy white.

In the midst of painting

So it looks all pretty for the pictures, but remember how I said there were two holes on the end? Those still aren't quite fixed, so I have some work to do, but it looks nice for now. The plan is to cut two pieces of wood perfectly sized and insert them, but we'll have to see how that all turns out.

All painted up

Project Number 2,345,583 and Counting...

So it's not really project number 2,345,583, but the list is getting rather long. I had been wanting to get a chair for my bathroom/dressing room for a while now. Despite the fact that most pictures I show on my blog of my apartment are quite neat and clean, this isn't necessarily the natural state of my apartment. The second law of thermodynamics rules in my apartment, unfortunately, with entropy tending to increase exponentially. Due to my nature of indecisiveness, I typically wind up with a large pile of clothes on the bathroom floor every morning, and I know I will never change, so a chair to put them on is the best solution for me.

Boyfriend and I made a Goodwill run a couple of weekends ago in an attempt to clear out some random stuff no longer needed. This is an admirable effort, but I always end up bring home stuff any time I go to Goodwill. On this particular trip, I ran across a cute little wooden folding chair for $10, which I couldn't resist. You may have looked at the pictures already and noticed that the chair is not a cute little wooden folding chair. Well, we brought all our goodies back to boyfriend's house first, and lo and behold, boyfriend's neighbors had some chairs out in front of their house for free. I cannot resist free things. So despite the fact they were hideous, I felt the need to take one of the chairs home with me, or rather to boyfriend's house.

I set up my cute little wooden chair up in boyfriend's room when we were redecorating, which turned out to be a mistake, as now he is attached and won't let it go away. So ugly chair for the bathroom it is. The current plan is to lacquer it white, as boyfriend has been wanting to lacquer something for a while now, and then to reupholster it, and add an upholstered back as well. I haven't gone material shopping yet, but I was thinking a white background with the reddish-coral color in the curtains as polka dots. It may be a bit much, but hey, I have a pink bathroom. Might as well go big.

Its natural state

The ugliness waiting to be transformed

A Hidden Georgetown Enclave - Pomander Walk

Saturday, boyfriend and I rode our bikes down to Georgetown to check out the DC Design House, which is being renovated by 16 designers to raise money for the Children's National Medical Center. More on that later, but while we were there, I happened to remember a house tour on Apartment Therapy that had looked at a house on a tiny little walk in Georgetown named Pomander Walk, which was quite close to the Design House (St. John's Episcopal Church Rectory). I wanted to check out the street myself, so after riding around in circles and trying to figure out where it was on my map, we wound up on Pomander Walk. It was starting to get dark by the time we found it, so the pictures not great, but it was a neat little street.

Dinner for Two

So I've decided to expand the focus of the blog even more, and continue the food coverage. On Sunday, boyfriend and I headed down to Eastern Market, because we hadn't been in a while, and I was craving my favorite pupusas, which are the best in the world. At least the best in my world. Unfortunately it was freezing and there was barely anyone there, but we planned out a fabulous dinner in the farmers market section.

We had a bit of inspiration from our meals at PS 7s, including a spicy cucumber salad and parsnip puree. The pièce de résistance though was prosciutto wrapped scallops, and for dessert we had raspberries and freshly whipped cream.

Fridge Makeovers

So as you can see below, I have a hideous kitchen:

It's blah and boring, and I don't really like the blue and white backsplash, because it doesn't go with my color scheme at all (it's actually just contact paper, not tile). So today I ran across this idea of wallpapering/painting the fridge and I'm sorely tempted. Obviously all of the examples below are pretty extreme and I wouldn't go quite as crazy, but it's now fermenting in the back of my brain, along with the 101 other projects I'm thinking about. Ideally, I would like to paint the cupboards, because they are hideous and really need a refinishing (you can't tell from the picture, but the finish is really coming off of the drawers). Considering the vent doesn't even work and is covered in years of grease nastiness, I would like to remove that as well. The cream-colored appliances aren't the greatest looking either, but there isn't a whole lot that can be done about that, except for wallpaper, of course!

Random Fridge Inspiration

(pictures courtesy of shelterhome)

Massive Winter Weather Alert!!!

That is what any forecast for over 0.0001" of snow is called in DC. Which, despite the fact it was like 75 degrees a couple of days ago, we now have. Rather, we have about 5" of snow. Which is quite pretty actually and I'm not too sad, despite the fact it causes for massive commute disruption. You would think relying on my feet and an underground train to get me to work wouldn't be a problem with snow, but no. Everyone who normally relies on their personal 4 wheels to get them to work decided to take the Metro in, leading to me not getting a seat.

Oh well, whatever, that's not the worst part of the snowstorm. The worst part is that I was at Target with boyfriend last weekend, and I happened upon saucer sleds that were on clearance for $1.46. As anyone who has lived in a remotely snowy region can tell you, saucer sleds are the best. They are the ultimate sledding experience. Despite the fact I ran into too many trees to count as a child, I still love them. Flash forward to last weekend, when it appeared spring was on the horizon. Boyfriend kindly talked me out of buying what would only be a ridiculous purchase that I would have to store in my tiny apartment, as there was no way I would ever use a sled in DC. After regretting not following my instincts and purchasing something that would bring me great joy, I may be making a run to Target after work and then locating the closest hill. :)