Two Queens on a King

The last time we purchased a mattress was in 2004.  Our mattress was worn out after 11 years of use, and we've been sleeping on a canoe bed (it had a sunken middle) for a few years.  If you placed a ball on the corner of our bed it would roll to the middle.  Finally my shoulder couldn't take it any more; I'd wake up with soreness because all my weight was pressing into certain points on my body.  In fact, I got better sleep at Christmas when my husband and I were sharing a full sized bed at my parents' house.  It was time for a change.

We are two queens (haaaaay) and we've always slept on a queen bed.

However, we took this moment to upgrade from a queen to a king.  I will miss using the punchline about two queens on a queen, but the king size bed is amazing.  There's plenty of room to stretch out.

Do you think the twins will try to sleep in bed with us?  If so, now we have room for everyone: two men, three dogs, and two babies: all aboard!

Nursery Update

On Monday, my husband and I toured the hospital where the twins will be born, which was thrilling; however, we got a little bit emotional (unexpectedly so) when we walked through the NICU and saw the littlest babies.  Fatherhood has me leading more with emotion than logic nowadays.  I can't help it.  I'm certain I will need to focus to ensure I'm not an obsessive enthusiast on the day of their birth.

During the hospital tour, the most amazing nurse explained we would get our own hospital room separate from our surrogate's where we could keep the babies with us.   Or, she said, we could send the babies to the nursery and the nurses would care for them.   I immediately said my babies will be with me at all times!  My husband made fun of me for jumping in.

As noted previously, I'm going to need to focus to ensure I'm not a maniac.

To prepare for the babies arrival we have been pulling together items for the nursery.

The cribs and chest of drawers are from Dwell Studio.  The mattresses, glider and ottoman are from The Land of Nod.  The rugs are from Anthropologie.   The photograph is a print of Slim Aaron's Poolside Gossip, which was purchased from Surface View.  The rocking horse is from Restoration Hardware.

I kept the plantation shutters in the room, because the only curtains I really wanted cost more than my first car, and I wasn't sure if curtains should be in our nursery since we have the cribs against the window wall.

I finally got around to framing the original art work we purchases from Etsy; we hung it high since this will be the changing table.   One of their first lessons our children will learn about art: we look with our eyes not our hands.

I think the nursery is coming together nicely.  We still have items to add, like bedding, but that will arrive over time.

Sleeping Boy 1961

Izabella Godlewska de Aranda's 1961 painting titled Sleeping Boy is brilliant.  As an art lover without an art budget I'm so grateful to be living in 2015!  Technology exists where it doesn't cost very much to have a painting printed on canvas - it makes art affordable and accessible to all.  Plus, I hope it gives the artists a little more income?

I was inspired by this photo, on Design Sponge from a Brisbane home:

I couldn't stop thinking about the painting, which I thought was an original.  I researched the artist and pow pow - just like that (magic?) I discovered I could bring home a print all my own.  Hooray for living in 2015.

This weekend my husband was sweet enough to hang the print for me.  It's high in the upstairs common room. 

 

I am a lucky man.

Babies and Puppies

If we surround our children with beautiful things, then they will act in a beautiful way?

We're slowly transitioning a bedroom into a nursery for future baby(ies).  Technically, we're not buying nursery furnishings until we're pregnant, which if all goes well will be July 2015.  However, I was able to get my husband to green light this purchase; it's a large scale print on canvas of Slim Aarons' so very, very celebrated Poolside Gossip.  I want to live in this photograph of 1970 Palm Springs!

I was inspired years ago by this nursery, which was in Fort Worth, Texas.

I've been planning our nursery for years, yes.  I've also been planning to act on my husband's decade long rule: "no more dogs than people" in our household.  When we add more people I will be able to add more dogs!

This weekend we discovered Dooley's half brother Kliff...

 ...fathered this bunch of puppies:

And one little boy is (as of this moment) available for adoption.  Oh, wouldn't it be lovely to scoop him up in a few weeks and have him trained by the time our baby(ies) arrive in one year?  Clearly this is a logical approach?  It's called planning.

Although, my husband and I are still discussing the pros and cons of the situation.  It's not every day you get the chance to bring home one of Dooley's nephews, right?  Honestly, my husband has enforced the "no more dogs than people" rule in our marriage for almost a decade in hopes that once children arrived I'd forget about more puppies.  That's ridiculous.  My husband knows me; I am not practical.  My husband is extremely practical.

Now that my husband understands my position; we're in a bit of a puppy negotiation.

The Box Gave It Away

Even though we have security cameras, my movement of this box from the front porch into the house went undetected by my husband.  Good.  I was trying to fly under the radar, because my husband wants me to wait until we're pregnant BEFORE I begin to decorate the nursery.  He's so logical.  That's no fun.

Decorating comes from passion.  It's not logical.  I saw a painting on Etsy. I thought it would look lovely in our nursery.  So I purchased it and timed the shipping to arrive while my husband was away on business.  Mwhahaha.

I did not think this through.  I hid the painting upstairs, but my husband found the box stacked for recycling in the garage.  Busted.  I was in the shower when my husband walked into the bathroom carrying the boxes and asking about their contents.  I took him upstairs...

 

To the alley:

The Best Use of Blue

Hello Lapo, you had me at "turquoise walls and sapphire-striped floors..." Can we be friends?

My subscription copy of Architectural Digest arrived in the mail today, and I immediately flipped to this spread of Lapo Elkann (who's a rich and famous person I do not know).  What I do know is that I love his fearless use of blue, and I think he needs to be my friend.  I want to see those floors with my own eyes!

You Always Remember Your First

We bought our first house in the fall of 2005.  It was a 1,652 square foot two bedroom, two bathroom bungalow built in 1926.

We fell in love with the large rooms rooms and high (10 foot) ceilings; it was the most spectacular house, and in the 31 months we owned the house we painted most rooms, remodeled one bathroom, did extensive landscape work, and since the largest room in the house was the center dining room we added a large chandelier with a black shade.   We also got married in the spring of 2006 and friends sent us two light fixtures from Restoration Hardware as a wedding gift, which we installed in the kitchen.

This week I noticed our  first house is up for rent!  Oh no.  I hope this doesn't fast track the (inevitable) tear down to rebuild a larger home future for our old house.  However, as a point of pride I did notice in the MLS rental info the agent explicitly calls out the "exquisite light fixtures."

"WONDERFUL CRAFTSMAN BUNGALOW WITH FRONT PORCH, DECK, 2 CAR GARAGE, TREES & SPRINKLER SYSTEM. CLOSE TO LOWER GREENVILLE AND DOWNTOWN. HARDWOOD FLOORS, RENOVATED KITCHEN AND BATHROOMS. WASHER, DRYER, REFRIGERATOR STAYS. TANKLESS WATER HEATER. EXQUISITE LIGHT FIXTURES, BUILTIN BOOK CASES, BRFST AREA WITH BUILT IN SEATS. AND LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. AVAILABLE JANUARY 15, 2015"

So our style lives on in the new rental!  Here's photos from when we last owned the home in June 2008.

 

Lucky Me

Is this photo of a duck or a bunny.  It depends, right?  As most things in life your perspective is key to your outlook and well being.

My mother, who was an extraordinary public school educator for 33 years before she retired (hello, traumatic brain injury!), had a poster in her classroom: "We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or we can rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."

I like that quote.  There's a lot of wisdom in that one sentence.

This week a little unexpected bonus hit my paycheck - because I've been killing it at work.  I was already trying to think of ways to convince my husband I "needed" to spend my bonus on a new entry table from Restoration Hardware...(Hello, Stack 50 Table!)

But this week one of our AC units went out.  I don't mean to brag, but our house has three AC units: one for upstairs, one for the main part of the house, and one for the master bedroom.  My husband is out of town Monday through Thursday each week, and all week, I felt like my husband was trying to save money by keeping the house warm.  It felt warm, but I would just go to bedroom where it was a perfect 69 degrees.

When my husband returned from his business trip, he immediately asked if I had noticed that the downstairs AC was set on 74 degrees but the house was 84 degrees?  I told him I thought it was warm, but I didn't look.  My husband shook his head at my reply, but in my defense: if I need the temperature in the house adjusted I tell my husband and he does it via the Internet.  I don't look at the wall mounts.

So, our AC was broken - a coil was cracked?  We had to get it fixed.  We "needed" to have working AC.

My perspective: it's a bummer that we had an unexpected house repair, but it was awesome that my unexpected little bonus covered the cost of the repairs - no damage to the monthly budget.  How great is that?  My life is awesome.

I Want More Sundays

Self Control. (What self control?) This is why my pants are currently too tight.  I didn't go to yoga on Sunday (it was teacher appreciation day) and I had homemade chocolate ice cream with fresh strawberries for dessert.

That was after we had bacon wrapped jalapeños with supper.

My husband and I did break a sweat on Sunday; we did epic amounts of yard work.  We tamed the forest of bushes, hedges, and odd overgrowth that was chocking our front flowerbeds.  We didn't get around to performing this home maintenance until three o'clock in the afternoon (a.k.a. the hottest part of the day).  We had a slow start to our day.  We paid the price for our tardiness with the triple digit temperatures.

We also filled our front two planters with leafy plants.  This beautiful blue planter was purchased a year or two ago in Dallas.  I never got around to planting it at our previous house.  I always adored the exquisite blue color, and that was enough for me.

This tall blue planter was purchased a month or two ago, because it matched my other planter.  My parents sent me a check for my birthday last month to cover my Music of the Spheres Westminster wind chimes and this planter.  The color blue makes me so happy.

Adding leafy greens to these planters is a great addition to the front porch.

What I've learned is that it can be 103 degrees outside with a ferocious sun in the sky heating up my body and it doesn't matter to me...as long as I'm hanging out with my husband, then in my world it's perfect weather.  Any day with my husband is a blue sky and crisp cool air kind of day.  I can never get enough of those days.

We Do Not Agree

We moved into our current house at the end of April.  The kitchen in our home opens to the main living room.  This is a common design in houses, and our previous home had a similar design.  However, in our previous home we did not have a television in the great room off the kitchen.  This is the view from the breakfast nook kitchen table...

My husband thinks this is a problem.  He doesn't like the lamp blocking his view of the television from the kitchen table.  So he thinks the table lamp should be a floor lamp...

I'm always finding the lamp on the ground around meal time...

I don't understand why we have to watch television from the kitchen table.  My husband doesn't understand why he cannot relocate the lamp, permanently.  This is the house we plan to raise our children in, and I fear for the next twenty years I'm going to be yelling: "turn the television off" during meal times!  We're fat Americans that must have a television going at all times?

Black Stripes

We purchased this 1994-time capsule house, and before we moved in we added wood floors downstairs and painted all rooms upstairs and three rooms downstairs.  Also, we had to do significant electrical wiring and my husband added speakers in every room.  We maxed out our budget for this first round.  But in the the future we plan to update bathrooms and eventually we want to completely rework the kitchen.  For now, we were lucky enough to have enough cash to add the wood floors and paint.  Those two things brought this house to life.

Here's what the dinning room looked like before:

Here's what the dinning room looks like after:

And yes, did you see Dooley likes to watch the children play in the 'sac.

Welcome to the 'Sac

The lighting isn't the best in the above photo, but last night I went to look at the natural stained wood floors.  They are beautiful.  Juan, the professional that installed the wood floors, told me most people want dark floors, but we made a good choice because light floors are the best.  "It's so pretty in the natural color," he stated.  We both stood on the tile in the kitchen admiring our new flooring.

Our new house is on a short street of 11 houses with a cul-de-sac at the end.  And while I was at the house a nice neighbor from across the street walked over and said, "Hi, welcome to the 'sac!"  We met and chatted for a bit.  She informed me that the neighbors get together for front lawn happy hours when the weather is nice.  She also commented on how our workers were at the house working on Easter Sunday (we're building a reputation as ball busters, and we haven't even moved in).  I told her we're moving in on Monday.  She said (in amazement) that she heard we were hosting a couples' shower the first Saturday we're in the house.  I had to tell her it was true (apparently the neighbors talk at the happy hours because she was well informed on our backstory).  Yes, we move in on Monday and we have 45 people coming to the house on Saturday.  We agreed to the event before we knew we were moving houses.

I like friendly neighbors.  We didn't know our new house comes with new best friends.  This house is going to be a great place to raise a family.

The Color of Wood

The wood is installed in the new house, and it looks great.  It looks really great.  It makes me wish we had money left in our budget to install floors in the kitchen and upstairs too!  Now it's time to think about the stain, and at first I wanted dark floors (like everyone else) but two houses with light wood floors caught my eye recently, and I think I'm going for light:

I think light floors lean a bit more modern and less traditional, which is what I enjoy.  Plus, I feel like our furniture and art and rugs will pop in a lighter environment.  However, our contractor is pushing for dark wood floors.  He thinks dark looks best.  What do you think?

Germ Compactor

Who invented the trash compactor, and why hasn't society shunned them?  I imagine the trash compactor invention conversation going something like this: let's create a large appliance that comes into contact with all trash with no way to clean the part that touches trash.  It'll compress trash so trash can stay inside the house longer.  Oh, and we'll require special trash sacks for the trash compactor to make sure we keep making money.

Luckily our contractor is highly familiar with people like us buying houses with trash compactors and insisting they be removed.

Am I missing something? Who sees the benefits of owning a trash compactor?