Felt dolls
Check out these beautifully handmade wood & wire frame dolls with felt clothing on Flickr. I think these are a great alternative to made-with-lead-paint-in-China Mattel toys, although I’m not sure they could stand up to daily handling from a child. Photos/crafts from Soozs.
Nursery color choices – in Flash
Yesterday, Andrew and my dad finished tearing down the old wallpaper in the nursery. What’s underneath isn’t so pretty – a layer of old sizing for the wallpaper and some other gobbledy-gook. It looks like we’re going to have to learn how to skim coat in order to even out these walls before priming and painting (we’ll use Benjamin Moore’s EcoSpec, since I’m leery of using anything more toxic than that while pregnant).
I played around with the swatch colors in Photoshop and animated the choices in Flash – the color should be pretty accurate:
Color choices at night with incandescent lighting and camera flash:
Color choices before noon, natural light, no camera flash:
More nursery ideas
I’ve been working out color schemes and furniture arrangements in Google Sketchup. I think I’ve finally settled on a light, bright green for the walls with some brown and a few splashes of pink. I’m considering Benjamin Moore’s “apple green,” “fresh cut grass” and “limelight.” I realize the art display is a bit excessive, but it’s just a grouping I downloaded from the Sketchup library (they’re IKEA frames). Our actual crib is IKEA’s “Gulliver,” not “Hensvik” as shown in these images. The bedding is the Dots pattern from Dwell. We’ve already bought the brown leather-upholstered Poang chair and footstool from IKEA, as well as the Malm 3-drawer dresser.
Nursery with “Apple Green” walls:
Nursery with “Fresh Cut Grass” walls:
Nursery with “Limelight” walls:
Cool bentwood rocker
This Thonet knockoff rocker would look great in the nursery, but alas, the company doesn’t recommend using it while holding a baby due to its deep, low seat. I saw this in a nursery feature in the most recent “FitPregnancy” magazine. The decorator had painted it a pretty kelly green color.
From rocking-chairs.com, $149.
Baby update
It’s been a LONG time since I posted. I was busy working at a summer music camp for kids and have barely been able to peruse all my favorite blogs in the meantime.
Here is an ultrasound video clip from our 22-week ultrasound on July 31 showing our daughter sucking her thumb! You can see her hand move to her mouth, but then her arm fades out of view and you can see her tongue moving back and forth in her mouth. The cheesy music is courtesy of the ultrasound office (we paid for this – Sneak Peek Ultrasound in Londonderry, NH).
Ceiling fixtures – no clue what to do
We need ceiling fixtures for our new kitchen, bathroom, mud room, den, and 2 hallways. I am totally bored by the options at Home Depot, Lowes, and a local lighting store, so I’ve decided to search online. I really have no clue how to choose … I’ve never really paid much attention to ceiling fixtures, and the ones we inherited with the house may very well have been the original 1950s fixtures. I’ve found great modern fixtures which come with steep price tags, so I have to pass on those. However, Lamps Plus actually has a few interesting options in their “contemporary” category:
Possible fixtures for the kitchen and the mud room:
Orion Square, $129.99
For the mud room:
Pollux Collection Crackle Glass Orbs, 30″ wide, $249.99 or Robert Abbey Anemone, 13″ wide, $149.91
For the bathroom and hallways:
Square Collection, 5 1/3″ Wide, $64.91
Are the den choices too wild? I worry that they’d be incongruous with the choices for the kitchen and other rooms. But since the den lighting isn’t really for function (I normally hate overhead lights, but the den is supposed to be our dining room and came with it), I figured I might as well make it more attractive.
Mid-century modern at Overstock.com
I came across this walnut-veneered side table and console at Overstock.com – they’re from La-Z-Boy and only $55.99 and $129.99, respectively. I love the hairpin legs and the storage possibilities in the side table. Apparently, Overstock has a shipping deal going on right now – only $1 for everything. I’m tempted to get these side tables to replace the IKEA Lack tables in my TV room.
Interesting art from Flickr
I love these genius paintings by Flickr user thequietsmirk. They’re such a nice antidote to those insipid motivational posters you see in offices. These look great against the boldly colored walls and great furniture in her home.
I’m not sure if thequietsmirk sells her paintings, but I’ll try and find out.
Great booties for baby
Mahar Drygoods has been in my bookmark list for a couple of years now, and I’m excited I’ll finally be able to shop online for my own baby. I particularly love these crocheted little booties:
Neat stuff from IKEA UK
Earlier today I was perusing one of my favorite blogs, More Ways to Waste Time and came across some great stuff Leah found on UK’s IKEA site. I too am wondering if they’ll be making their way across the Atlantic. I can’t wait for the new IKEA catalog to come … it seems like they’re usually sent out around this time of year.
What I want the house to look like, eventually …
While we’re nowhere NEAR ready to re-side or paint the house, I’m dreaming up ways to improve its curb appeal anyway. I used Photoshop to mock up the color of the house and add a portico over the front stoop. I can’t imagine the house any other color than blue – unfortunately the neighbors to our left and across the street have blue houses as well. I wonder if they’d mind. The inspiration for this new look came from Blueprint magazine’s first issue.
Photoshop house:
Current house:
The inspiration:
I’d consider leaving the black storm door off, since it probably wouldn’t be that necessary with the portico overhead.
Never EVER confuse these two products …
… or you will end up with this:
Since Friday, we’ve been battling our dishwasher and the never-ending production of suds each time we run a cycle. I Googled “suds” and “dishwasher,” trying to diagnose the problem and concluded that some liquid hand soap must have found its way onto a dish or bowl in the first cycle on Friday. However, after removing all the dishes, using salt, ice cubes and vegetable oil to dissolve the suds, the dishwasher was still producing suds. So last night I popped open the rinse agent dispenser and noticed a few bubbles in it. It then occurred to me that Andrew, when refilling the rinse agent last week (Friday!), must have accidentally placed Dawn instead of Jet Dry into the dispenser. Sure enough, when I asked him, he realized his mistake. I called Bosch’s customer service line and was told to continue to run the dishwasher to try and run out the Dawn. Yeesh. I hate hand washing dishes in the meantime.
Our IKEA Arild sofa
A lot of people find this site by Googling “IKEA Arild sofa,” so I thought I’d post a photo of our sofa in its natural habitat:
It’ll be moved to our larger living room later this week when we get our new IKEA sofa, the “Sater,” which will replace the Arild in our TV room.
Kitchen update: almost finished!
The kitchen is just about finished … all that’s left is the mosaic tile backsplash, getting the floor polished, installing the wood open shelving and finding a ceiling light fixture.
To see the complete set of pictures taken yesterday, see my Flickr page.
The area above the Kitchenaid mixer is where the shelves will be installed. We’re using 2 48″x15″ IKEA birch countertop pieces with hidden supports. They’ll wrap around the wall bump-out as well. The trim around the window needs to be painted and I’m still trying to decide what to do about curtains.
Those are 2 Target placemats serving as the backsplash behind the cooktop right now. My mom had the brilliant idea of placing them there. I went out and bought enough of them to do the entire kitchen backsplash with these placemats until we get the tile backsplash done. I’m hoping I’ll get to that project sometime soon. The doors in the background are the same yellow as the old kitchen … gotta paint those when we get to the trim.
We LOVE our new Electrolux induction cooktop. It boils water in the blink of an eye and wipes up so easily. In fact, I’m able to place a silicone potholder under my cookware to help keep the cooktop from getting scratched or dirty.
Here’s our mixer with the potential placemat backsplash.
Our new faucet is the Grohe “Minta” and the sink is the Kohler “Verse.” The faucet is beautiful, but I don’t recommend it. The lever is placed so far out that it blocks the 3rd hole of the sink, so we had to swing it out over the sink. The water stream falls short of the sink’s drain – I’m not sure if this is a flaw with the design of the faucet or the sink, but it has the unhappy consequence of creating a horrific splash when the faucet is centered and hits the rim of the drain.
The rope lighting you see peeking out at the top of the cabinets is our over-cabinet lighting. It still needs to be secured to the cabinets.
Our new IKEA sofa!
We went to IKEA in Stoughton, MA, last night to pick up some things for the kitchen. While there, we came across this great new sofa – the “Säter.” It’s dark brown leather and beautiful … and only $449! I’m thrilled because this means we can finally get rid of the old (but in great condition) flower-upholstered Henredon sofa we received as a hand-me-down from my parents. The new sofa will be delivered next Friday.
Here it is:
It’s not on IKEA’s U.S. site yet. I’m glad I snapped a picture of it with my cell phone. I also couldn’t find it on any of the European sites, but I did find it on a Western Australia IKEA site, interestingly. Here’s their picture of it:
It reminds me a lot of Room & Board’s “Jasper” sofa, but IKEA’s has metal legs instead of the tapered wood legs of the Jasper.
