C'est tout

Mesdmames et messieurs! Moulez votre regard fixe sur mon trone royal!

It only took the better part of a year of my life to finish what all in all took about an hour total, but the downstairs bathroom is finished. Why did it take so long? Ambition, perfection, and sloth all got in my way. I finally cracked open on the the stupid marvy uchida paint pen, poured the paint into a sippy cup, added some water and free hand painted the design on the wall with a $1 paintbrush. It took 30 minutes. C'est parfait? Non. C'est fini? Oui.

So here it is. Finally a half bath you really, ahem, get something done in...

The big mirror is from Ikea, and I moved the orange Jonathan Adler soap dish and garbage can into this bath. That soap that's in there is Rancé Creme Grasse and it smells like heaven in a really old lady heaven kind of way. Love it. 

I took the Orla Kiely from Target box out and replaced it with the Liberty of London box. I put candles and my favorite Diptyque Pomander room spray in it. Just in case. 

This is truly the worlds smallet wc. It's like an airplane toilet. The mirrors help add some light. 

I also removed the Orla Kiely for Target magazine boxes and replaced them with these ones from The Container Store. Now you are starting to see why it took a year. I'm mental. Happy pooping!

These are a few of my favorite things

I've had a headache for two days straight which is probably related to the massive amount of sludge that is coming out of my nose. I'm pretending it's not happening. I do not have a cold. To help pretend I'm not sick I thought I'd share a few things that are making me happy this week. 

First things first. The weather. While the rest of the country suffers through winter, we are enjoying 78 and sunny. And not just any kind of sunny. That crystal blue dreamy sunny that makes you happy to be alive kind of sunny. Sunday morning Jack and I got up early and drove to the beach, where we played in a monster, went for a stroll, watched helicopters zoom up and down the coast, tried to figure out how to build a sand castle with no buckets (thus the giant nipply breast made of sand in the foreground) and had an all around great valentines morning.

Next up: Cherry Pop! Sadie and I found this new color nail polish by Essie at Larchmont Beauty. It's just a tiny hint of blush on your nails. I'm kind of over my usual finger polish color which is "Sugar Daddy". As much as I like asking for it by name, I've decided it's boring, and makes me look like a mom. Ssshhh. 

How unbelievably cute is this little tray?! It's from IKEA, and it was $6. I know! I hate going to places like Ikea and Target with Nipper because he makes me feel so rushed, and is always asking stupid questions like "What do we need that for?". Ugh! I went to both places with him yesterday and it was like torture. 

I did manage to squeeze one more cute thing out of that visit. I found this perfect strawberry milkshake colored tumbler that I'm going to use for my morning latte. I think she and Francis are in love... Oh, and it was $2. 

Doesn't this look like Wes Anderson designed it?

I'm signed up for all these online sample sale websites. Hautelook, and DailyCandy, and TheMiniSocial. But my favorite one because it has an iphone app is Gilt Groupe. It's also my favorite because sometimes they have $18,000 Valentino gowns, and $7000 pearl necklaces that SELL OUT. It fills me with wonder that there are women out there who would buy something that expensive sight unseen from a "no returns" website. Who are these people? Why are they on this site? Do they brag to their friends the same way I do about my $2 ikea cup? "Oh yeah, well I saved $12,000 on a this season Alexander McQueen". Or do they hide it and pretend like they bought it at the showroom. Do they ever think or talk about money? The world may never know. Long story short, I bought this pretty tin of MarieBelle iced aztec hot chocolate for $12. It's usually $20. Maybe I'll lie to myself and pretend I paid full price for it. What a bargain. When I'm done with the cocoa, I'll use the tin to hold something pretty in my new office. 

I know it's kind of cheating, but I bought these for myself on February 13th at Trader Joe's. They smell SO good, and it feels like spring around here. The place was mobbed and I was trying to do our grocery shopping. Nipper and I don't really do anything for Valentines day. I don't think either one of us thinks of it as a real holiday. So this guy was behind me in line with some flowers that I wanted to tell him were NOT the ones his wife was hoping for, said he wished his wife would get her own flowers on Valentines day. I thought "after she sees those, she's going to wish the same." For the record, Nipper Knapp knows what kind of flowers I like, and has NEVER brought me a mixed bouquet with babies breath or other forbidden fillers. 

yes those ARE naked Barbie feet sticking out of my sewing box. 

This is making me VERY happy. At our sewing class a few weeks ago, Betty suggested these scissors. I had an old pair of sewing scissors, but I had used them to cut everything from paper to, wait for it, my lilac bush. So I figured it was time to invest in a pair that would be dedicated to only fabric. They are made by Gingher and they are dreamy, and have already made sewing so much easier! Before when I would cut the fabric out for a pattern it would be all jagged and messy. Now it's like I know what I'm doing. I also got this handy thread holder. Which brings me to the last thing that is making me happy this week. It's a combo dealie.

Some of my favorite fabrics finally all in one place where I can see them all

Candy jars from our wedding filled with all my buttons

The beginning stages of my first project in the pink man cave! Check out the vintage Heather Ross "Pool Party" fabric I unearthed when I got all my fabric together in one place! Treasure! In tiny letters in some of the pools it says "SHARK!". 

The pink man cave/my office is almost finished. I'm not posting pics yet, because I'm waiting for the rug to come from overstock.com (did you know they ship ANYTHING FOR $2.95?), the skylight to go in, my box of papers to be put away, oh and for Roberto to remove the second story WINDOW, and pull the 300lb sleeper sofa, (that we promised we'd sell with the house) through it, lower it down from the roof and bring it in here. No big deal. But it's done enough for me work on things, and I'm LOVING it. Finally, I have a place to put everything. All of my fabric is in one place. All of my thread, and yarn, and beads, and buttons, and embroidery floss, and patterns, and glue sticks. I kind of feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

ok, one teeny tiny sneaky peaky.... This is one part of the very unfinished room. Don't worry, that water heater is getting hidden behind something very very pretty...

Also the front loading washer that I always wanted before we owned a house is in here. I find it soothing to start a load of laundry before I start sewing, just to watch it wash, and listen to it suds. I call it the sin eater. What's that sound? Oh it's fine, you just heard my bra burning, war protesting, supreme court ruling mother, vomit, and then shake me like a baby. Love you!

Jack's new bed with curtains that I sewed with my own two hands, on the window behind

I MADE THOSE!!!!!!

I was actually able to make the curtains for Jack's new room (our old office) in ONE day. This is progress. As you know, it usually takes me 3-6 months to do anything. Oh, and Nipper put Jack's bed, that's been in a box in the garage for two months together. He's been sleeping in it for two nights just like a big boy. I thought the transition from crib to bed was going to be this big momentous thing. He just crawled right in and crashed. Even waited until his monkey alarm "Boo" woke up at 7, to shout for us. I'm not sure he understands that he can walk right out of his room yet. I'm sure that day is coming.

So there it is. My nose is still running, and I ran into the rain barrel pulling into the driveway this afternoon, and knocked the spigot off, sending a weeks worth of bath water gushing down the drive. Not my finest moment. Did I mention I need to make a 7 layer Minnie Mouse cake by Saturday? 

MÅRYJA TJÅMMAS

That's my swedish furniture name in case you were curious. MÅRYJA TJÅMMAS, I'm a bed. Go here to find out yours. Oh internet, I love you!


I spent New years day night at ikea. Yup that's right. I was there just before closing stocking up on a kura, a grundtal, a gosig shark, and a sultan fidjetun. I also wanted an orange billy jader, but they were sold out. 

Ta-dah!

I've decided that the key to finishing projects in a timely manner is outsourcing. I like to think of myself as ambitious. But I'm also lazy. I'm ambitiously lazy. I told Nipper Knapp yesterday that I think the garage office should be my project room. I said I think the reason I have a hard time finishing things is because I don't have space to do them. I'm always packing things up mid-project and putting them away, making it harder to get back out and start back up, so I move on to another project. He said "OH, so THAT'S why you have so many projects going." Bastard. I came upon Alicia Paulson's website the other day, and I think the photos of her studio are dreamy. Look at that shelf filled with fabric. Swoon!

Ok, so that's the next thing to get done, but right now we have something that we got started on this week, and it's finished! And by we, I mean Roberto, our neighborhood handyman, and all around most helpful person ever, and his entire crew. He told me last Friday he would start the tile Monday morning. He and his crew also work for Barbara, our landscape designer, who is also a freakin genius, and took our sad dirt lot and made it into an oasis for us. Apparently they had to start a job for Barbara on Monday as well, so they were shuttling guys back and forth. On Monday Miguel, the youngest, and my guess the guy who gets stuck with all the crap jobs, came to tear out the old tile. They discovered that the house flipper we bought the place from had tiled right over the plaster, so they had to take the wall down to the studs and start over. On Tuesday Momo, Roberto's brother Geronimo, who is the craftsman of the crew, came and put up the hardybacker, and made a chalk line for the tile. Jack loves Momo, and stood in the kitchen door for two days saying "What's Momo doing?". 

Our house was built in 1928. Nothing is even. The floors, the windows, the walls, the cabinets, nothing is perpendicular to anything else. So when Momo the perfectionist started to tile, he was dismayed to see that everything was galley gimble. I could tell it was making him crazy, and I assured him that I didn't expect it to be perfect, just better than the barfy bean colored tiles that we had before. 

They had to make a million cuts to make the tiles line up correctly and so the tile work went into Thursday. Roberto came with his wife and worked until 9pm that night despite our protests that they go home. We bought them In&Out burgers and sent them home with a box of burgers and fries for their boys. Some stupid consolation. At one point, after we had gotten Jack to bed, Nipper and I were downstairs ready to watch TV. We had an overwhelming sense of guilt, and were trying to hide in the living room. Could we have tiled the kitchen ourselves? Yes. Should we have? NO. It would have taken us 3 or 4 months, and we would probably be flirting with a trial separation. Plus, we are contributing to the economy. So there! Suck it guilt!

Roberto also had to have his electrician come in to do a few things. We've had to unplug the garbage disposal every time we run the dishwasher because the previous owner put them on the same switch. So thoughtful. We also had a plug in the middle of this tiny wall in the middle of the room that I'm not sure what you'd plug into it. We had him take that one out and put one in the back hallway so I could move the microwave back there, and free up some counter space. When we moved here, my mother said "You don't have a lot of storage space in that kitchen" and I thought she was spoiled. She has one of those awesome kitchens with an island the size of a large motor home, and custom cabinets, with drawers, and pulls, and things that spin so you never have to bend over. Dream kitchen. But she was right, we have stuff crammed in every single inch of that kitchen, including the back table that is overflowing with crap. That my designated disaster area. The household junk drawer. Nipper Knapp is not allowed to say "What's this?" OR "Where is this thing going to go?" If it's on the back table it's got immunity from his O.C.D.

So here are the before and after  pictures. If I had a million dollars I would love to have done a whole big kitchen renovation. Taken out a wall, added french doors to the patio, retiled the floor, gotten real cabinets with drawers, and other storage things that make sense. But I don't have a million dollars. I have about thirty seven dollars. Nipper and his dad painted the kitchen right after we moved in. Shortly after that I painted the cabinets and installed the green glass knobs and drawer pulls to match my jadite appliances and dishes. I had this awesome upholsterer make the curtains from this fabric I bought 6 years ago, before I was married, or owned a house. I knew I'd have a kitchen someday, and I knew I'd want curtains from that fabric. 

BEFORE

thanks but no thanks for the country kitchen cabinets and horrid soffit

I alternately refer to this tile as the "home depot especial" and "refried tile delight"

The neighbors told us that there was a craftsmen era built in breakfast nook here that the flipper tore out

AFTER

Ta-dah! My mom insisted on getting us the oven hood, she was right, it finishes the space. Thanks mom!

I took the door off the glass cabinet so I wouldn't have to listen to the cabinet door banging 32 times a day. I am impossible to deal with. I know. 

The white tile makes the kitchen look so much bigger. I went with a dove grey grout so it would match better with the grey countertops and stainless steel appliances, which by the way NEVER look clean. Poor Nipper

I got the "fake Saarinen table at Ikea. It's called the Docksta, and it's kind of the greatest rip-off ever. The Eames chairs are from Modernica, and they were a birthday gift to Nipper Knapp from my mother last year. 

Today I went out and bought what I keep referring to as the "Cadillac of dishracks", (sorry Nipper) and an under the cabinet paper towel dispenser. Not having the paper towels sitting on the counter anymore kind of makes me feel like we are Vanderbilts. Like we moved out of the cave and into the DE-luxe apartment in the sky. We're movin' on up people...

All in all, I'd say we spent just under $1000 over the course of two and a half years (not including the gift chairs) to make the kitchen look like the kitchen I imagined I'd have all those years ago. Now if only I could have imagined a second bathroom. I never dared to dream that big. 

who knew chores could be SO sexy?

SO, I'm pretty sure I accomplished more this weekend than I have in the last 3 months combined. You know that feeling when you have too much you have to do, and too much you want to do, and not enough time to do either. So I've been feeling like that pretty much non stop since about 30 seconds after Jack was born. But this weekend, I broke the spell! Somehow I managed to do a bunch of stuff and spend time with Jack. It was one of those magic times when no one throws a fit, no keys get lost, no one gets a last minute audition in santa monica at 5:30. Magic.

Nipper agreed that if I got up with Jack at whatever ridiculous hour he decided to grace us with his presence on Saturday, he'd get up at 8:30, so I could go to the sample sale, baby free. Love that Nipper Knapp. Ok, so I meet Sadie there, and we're excited because there are only a handful of ladies milling about on the sidewalk. When they open the door we are somewhat disappointed to see that it's a pretty small space, but worse, that we're all going to be let in at the same time. I don't have to tell you what happens next. It's ugly. Women are crouched around boxes of ella moss and splendid littles, elbowing, scowling, grunting strange things. I quickly ascertain that there's not much there for me in the way of cute boy stuff (always the way) and I decide that digging through a box on the floor like and animal for a half priced jersey top isn't how I want to start my day. Don't get me wrong, if I thought there was some crewcuts stuff in there, I'd have been knocking ladies out.


Ok, so as I'm one of the only women standing upright, I notice on a side table this little stack of alphabet cards. I quickly realize they are the Ida Pearle cards that I had been coveting when they had them on the site a few months back. Hooray! Hooray! A little treasure. I highly recommend checking out her stuff, it's beautiful.

Ok, so we were out of there in under 15 minutes, so we went to Lowe's to check out tile for the kitchen. Sadie is a super shopper. By super I don't mean she's great. I mean she's freakin superior. She's better at it than you. Fact. But I had no idea she had crazy home improvement skills. If Nipper and I go into these places it's endless decisions that we can't seem to make. Sadie and I got an employee to go get us a cart, load four boxes of tile, pick out the adhesive, find the grout color we wanted (I decided on dove grey), without really asking or saying please. We were out of there in 20 minutes. This was at Lowe's you understand. Not Saks, not Barneys, LOWE'S. We asked if he had any more of the tile on the shelf, and he went and did all this for us. Did I mention Sadie is a model? I'm thinking of taking her to dentist to see if there's some magic pain free service you get there if you're pretty...

Ok, so tile purchased, we went to Ikea. I just needed to get a frame for this photo that I had printed a few years ago, and had lost to the garage until we started cleaning it out to convert it to our office. While we were there, I found tea towels to make Sadie some owl towels like the ones at Anthropologie that we refuse to pay $18 for. I got a perfect frame. I found a mirror for the STILL unfinished downstairs bathroom. Picked a bookshelf for Jack's room, and ate my first Ikea cinnamon roll. Uhm, yes to that!


SO I came home, and took a nap with Jack. We've fallen into a bad habit of keeping our windows closed even in perfect weather and relying on the a/c. Nipper had opened all the windows, and so while Jack napped in our bed, I laid next to him reading a book, watching the curtains blow in the breeze. You know, LA, 70, sunny, perfect.


When Jack got up, I went outside to finally plant those ferns I bought after seeing the ones Kelly had on her porch in Nashville. (Sunday I got Nipper to drill holes in the window sill and hang those ferns WHILE football was on the tv. I think I had momentary super powers this weekend.) I planted two mandevillas that I've had for oh I don't know 5 months. I framed the photograph, paid some bills, made Jack dinner, put him to bed, and watched The Abyss.


And that was just Saturday!


On Sunday I did a headshot for one of my clients who I shot when she was a kid. I'm not really doing headshots anymore as it's just too hard to work them into our cuckoo baby, audition, eating, sleeping, Madmen watching schedule. But I always say yes to old clients. So I did that, went to Target for diapers and wipes and ended up with $30 in plastic christmas plates and cups for Jack, which I knew Nipper would hate. But this morning Jack had his cocoa out of a snowman sippy cup. How festive is that?


Then I went and had a massage at Burke Williams, where my masseuse who sort of resembled that gymnast guy in Oceans 11 (or 12 or 13) but with a GIANT black mole on his face, rubbed my neck until my shoulders were no longer up by my ears. He also did some kind of crazy thai stretching that made my hips feel like Gumby.


Ok, so I know I'm going to blow you're mind right now, but after all of that, we went for Sushi. No, seriously, we left the house after 6pm, and ate in a restaurant. It was kind of surreal. I had two fusions, which is a pink drink they make with soju, and then I lost my ability to concentrate on the conversation which was mostly about the hostess who was about to lose her top and kept hiking it up as she travelled from the front door to nearby tables. Classy. Ladies, if you're going to wear a strapless dress, please tape it to your body with some Hollywood Stick Tape. Because no matter how pretty you think your decolletage is, it's not when you're tugging on your dress all night like a cholo holding up his low rider dickies. NOT PRETTY.


Ok, so this morning, we cleared almost everything out of the garage in final preparations for Nipper's Dad's arrival. He's going to help Nipper drywall. This put me in a spectacular mood because I had checked something else off my to do list. I'm practically in mommy nirvana as I'm sweeping up the floor. Nipper Knapp on the other hand was cranky and now seems to be questioning his own mortality. Oh did I mention that when Roberto showed up to start the tile we discovered that there was no hardybacker behind the old tile. Uhm, yeah, they had to take it down to the studs, which sent Nipper Knapp into a tailspin of remorse and loathing. I think he's at Sharkey's right now trying to tie one on.

By the end of this week, I will have more things checked off my to-do list than I thought was possible this year. I might even muster the strength to finish the downstairs bathroom. It could totally fucking happen.

bobsled to hell

Ok, so I think that the decoupage might be where I slid down the slippery slope of nursery decoration into a dark world of crafts, and jo-ann fabric visits. Did I ever mention my fake band? I mean, it's not like I was I was in the The White Stripes or anything, but at least there was this thought of something cool. I mean we played the kibitz room (sort of).

Before we got pregnant, we lived in this loft downtown. It was great to have a space for my photography, and my good friend (and fake bandmate Sadie) lived right down the hall. But once we realized we were going to be parents, the truck wash downstairs, and the hooker corner outside the parking lot, seemed less than family friendly. Plus, I like to sleep. I like quiet. We quickly realized, that the wall free, concrete box, that was our haven, would soon be echoing with the sounds of a crying baby. I was going to need to shut the door on that mess.

SO we started looking for a house, and in the meantime, I started nesting, or pre-nesting. And it started with this little decoupage project. Making matters worse I found the templates on Martha Stewart's website. I don't care if that mean lady went to jail, she's got mojo. I got the paper from paper source. The dressers that were intended for the baby's someday nursery, I got at Ikea. I don't think they have this exact dresser anymore, but they always have something similar. These were unfinished and the perfect size to double as a changing table.

I like the way they turned out like an orange creamsicle. But I've noticed that since that project, I've been frequenting places where the other shoppers are frightening to me. I was in a Michael's a few weeks ago looking for linen embroidery thread, and all of a sudden I was overcome with panic. "THESE ARE NOT YOUR PEOPLE!" What was I doing there; in this place where people were buying dusty fake flowers, and WICKER baskets? I am a wicker free zone. Sure I could lie to myself and say, "You're not like them. You're just here for your very cool, totally normal, embroidery floss. These people are clearly losers, who live in sad rentals, with bad lighting, and haircut model posters". But then came the tutu project, which required 4 visits to Jo-Ann fabrics, and that's when I realized, I was lying to myself and I had hit rock bottom.

Jo-Ann fabrics is the kind of place I wouldn't have deigned to visit three years ago. It's low budget, low brow, low rent, it's the Netherlands of fabric stores, low, low, low. On each of my four visits, there was a mother and daughter couple there shopping together. These pairings unnerved me greatly.

"Mom, did you see everything on the notions wall is on sale?" the daughter would bleat with a thick Fargo accent.

"Oh sure. And did you see this pre-smocked dress fabric, that is just darling, and so practical!" the mother would respond.

"Just ignore these manatees" I'm thinking. "Just block them out". "YOU are nothing like THEM. Losers. Stupid, fat, tacky, boring, slow witted, buffet pants, comfortable shoe wearing..." and then they turned on me.

"Oh! What are you going to do with all that tulle?"

And suddenly, I'm gushing. About making tutus, for all the neighborhood girls, and my son, and how my husband doesn't really approve, and I'm breathless, and they're smiling politely, and OH MY FUCKING GOD, WHO AM I???