Month: May 2011

State {of the} Art

Published on by Our Humble Abode21 Comments

Three and a half years ago, we had just finished our master bedroom and needed art to fill the bare walls.  To keep things cheap, I cut out silhouettes of Ben and myself to fit in a frame I already owned.


To add a splash of pink, I ordered 8 vintage Pierre J. Redoute botanical prints.  The 9 inch by 11 inch prints were cheap, and $3.50 frames from Michael’s were a cheap solution.

Though having art on the walls was great, we never really loved the prints in the space.  Just a little too ‘old lady’, especially when paired with the traditional trim and bed.  We’ve been wanting new art, but just couldn’t find the art.  Until recently.  We featured an Idaho watercolor painting from Poppy and Pinecone, but didn’t see Montana.  After a few conversations with Elisabeth, we had an agreement to trade custom art.  Here’s a tip: If you sell anything on Etsy, trading is a great way to save money, but get items you like.  I sent her a Family Tree cut out in orange in exchange for two custom 11 inch by 14 inch state watercolor prints.

Ben is from Montana, so I wanted his print in greens and blues.  Because I’m from Minnesota, I wanted my painting in girly colors, pinks and purples.  And here is where my custom vision turned Elisabeth into a rock star.  I needed both prints in a landscape orientation, to maintain symmetry.  For Montana, that’s easy.  Minnesota, however is usually vertically printed.  I left it to Elisabeth to somehow turn vertical Minnesota into a horizontal design without looking strange.  I knew, based on the work I’ve seen, that the prints would be fantastic.  When I received that beautifully packaged art, I couldn’t wait to tear it open to see what Elisabeth made.  Do you want to see?  Of course you do.  Here is Ben’s Montana:

And my Minnesota:

Isn’t that fantastic?!?  I know!  And, the quality was even better than I could have imagined.  The watercolor paper is rich, textural, heavy, and luxurious.  I waited until the prints arrived to buy frames, just to make sure the size worked.  I needed something to fill the wall, and two 16 inch by 20 inch frames looked great.  Then, I remembered I had one black frame sitting in the closet.  A matching frame hung in the basement bathroom holding a print from The Living Room Floor.  I snagged the frame (and mat) to use in our bedroom.  Now, I had only one frame to buy to replace the one I just stole.  I cut another mat to the same dimensions using a sharp utility knife and straight edge and popped the new State Love prints inside.

The new frames are much larger than the two 11 by 14 frames we had on each side.  I hung the new frames on the old nails, so the art interacts more with the bed, which I like.

When walking down the hall, I catch a glimpse of the Minnesota art.  Also, the art reflects beautifully in the new sunburst mirror directly across the room.

For another fun, custom touch, (you caught a glimpse of above) I framed a 5 by 7 wedding invitation from Ello There.  Just goes to show art is anything you find beautiful.  We added our ceremony information and customized the colors to match our decor.  It is such a cute print, and an adorable wedding invitation.  And, I’ve added even more birds to our house.  The paper is a nice smooth, thick card stock of great quality and Maddy was a pleasure to work with.  She put up with my annoying questions and accommodated my requests.  Yes, this is a trend.  I am annoying and have many requests.  Moral of the story, I’m a pain in the arse.

A lamp, cheapo 5 by 7 frame, $1 ceramic bird, and black lacquer and capiz jewelry box are the perfect bedside table accessories to round out our bedroom makeover.  Both fun and functional.  Just my style.  Our personalized, colorful bedroom art overhaul makes me smile every time I go in.  As does the cost of the revamp.  Just $10.00 for the print, an art trade, reused frames and a three dolla paint stick mirror.  I had all of the supplies for the silhouettes, for a grand total of $13.00 spent for an entire room of art.

Which room have you spent the least for art?  Where did you find it?  Maybe you made it.  Any tricks you’ve found to keep the cost low?

Please note:  We were not compensated for this post, we simply love the items we’ve purchased and traded from these shops and want to share with you.

A Finished Office

Published on by Our Humble Abode23 Comments

!!!!!  Yay!  This is the moment I’ve been waiting to share for a year.  For Mother’s Day, I we went out to breakfast, then did a little shopping.  Not the fun kind, though I did get a new Leatherman Squirt in bright blue.  That’s fun, right?  Ben bought me a bouquet of Kermit mums.  Love how fun they are.  When we returned home, I requested asked Ben to install the drawer fronts in my office as my Mother’s Day gift.  (Three years ago, I requested a new end table, which is now in the guest bedroom).  Being the fantastic hubby he is, he did.  I wasn’t able to get any during shots, so I’ll make sure to take some when we install the laundry room drawers.

Ben had already installed the drawers, but the drawer fronts couldn’t be built until the drawers were installed.  Which means waiting, which I’m not good at.  But, Ben built the fronts and it was my turn to prime and paint.  A few afternoon naps and three coats of paint later, the fronts were ready.  We went from this:

Which was already a huge improvement over this, both in looks and function:

Now, I can officially say my office is finished.  Well, the building, I’m sure it will continue to change and evolve over time and use.

We continued with the Shaker style panel, but had to make a few minor adjustments.  Can you see the difference?  It’s like a drawer version of Where’s Waldo?

If you haven’t noticed it, good!  That was the goal.  If you’re wondering, pay close attention to the horizontal pieces.  The top drawer front is only 5 inches tall, the second is 5 1/2 inches tall, the third is 8 inches and the bottom is 12 inches.  All of the verticals are 2 1/2 inches wide, but the horizontals are not.  Why, you ask?  Because, the top drawer would be completely flat if the horizontal was still 2 1/2 inches.  2 1/2 + 2 1/2 = 5  The second drawer would have only 1/2 inch between the horizontals, which isn’t enough room for the drawer pull.  So, drawer number 1 has 2 inch horizontals, leaving 1 inch for a pull, while the second drawer has 2 1/4 inch horizontals, with an inch for a pull.  Pretty fun, right?

After some convincing of Ben, he agreed it wouldn’t look completely stupid.  I hate the back-handed compliments.  And if it did, it was my idea and not his office.

I love the finished, seamless look, especially paired with the connected squares trim pattern.  I think the doors and drawers finish off the space perfectly, concealing every ugly, strictly utilitarian office essential.  Well, almost every one.  We still need to build, paint and install a pull out shelf to set my printer on.  It is ugly and needs to be hidden.

Ben admitted when he finished installing the doors that he was jealous of my office and has plans of a hostile takeover.

The clean white drawers and cabinets are the icing on the cake. 

Have you finished any lingering projects?  What took so long?  Weather?  Supplies?  Lack of motivation?  Just know you’re not the only one with outstanding projects.

So, Tell Us

Published on by Our Humble Abode53 Comments

For the past year, we’ve been blabbing about ourselves.

We want to know more about you, if you wouldn’t mind sharing.  Maybe you can take a minute or two to answer a few questions?  Next week, we’ll recap the answers, just for fun.

1.  The basics: you gender, age, marital status, if you have kids and/or pets?  Where do you live?  A fine city in the United States or an international destination?

2.  How often do you read Our Humble A{Bowe}d?  Do you subscribe to read?  Or follow through Google reader or right here on ourhumbleabodeblog.wordpress.com?

3.  How many other blogs do you read?  What type?  Home improvement, cooking, photography?  Please share your favorites.  If you have a blog, please share a link.

4.  What can we do to make this blog better?  We recently changed our picture size to allow for quicker loading and easier viewing.  Anything else?  Want to see more or less of something?  Do you have a series idea?

5.  Share a random fact or funny thing that makes you tick.  Anything about you.

Guess What We Did?

Published on by Our Humble Abode17 Comments

Last Saturday, Ben was baking banana bread while the boys and I ate waffles at the dining table.  Ben got annoyed talking around the upper cabinets separating the kitchen and dining rooms.  He jokingly said he wanted to take the cabinets down.   After a second, I said, “Go for it!”  I thought about where we could move our plates, bowls and cups.  After breakfast, I cleared the cabinets out and moved everything to our newly empty cabinets thanks to Jen’s 30 in 30 challenge.

Then, Ben got his drill and started removing the cabinet doors.

After the doors, the cabinets came down.

It was a quick process.  If only our entire kitchen renovation would go as quickly.  Just 18 screws, 5 minutes, and a little dancing to get a brighter, more open kitchen.

Now, we have a nice, open view to the dining room.

It’s amazing that the kitchen is so much brighter without the divider.  Remember the old view?

Just for kicks, I asked Ben to hold one of the cabinets against the wall, just to get a feel for the new cabinet layout.  This one is larger than what we’ll actually have.

The walls behind the cabinets haven’t been painting and to be honest, I’m debating whether I want to or not.  The screws left a little damage and the holes should be filled.  But, I’m lazy and hopefully we’ll start renovating the kitchen this fall, so it won’t last too long.  Right?  Most likely, I’ll get sick of looking at the mismatched paint and touch it up.  We’ll see.  Haha.

Now you’ve seen the results of our impulse decision.  It’s strange to go to the cabinet to grab a cup for Vincent and see plates.  We’ll get used to it soon.

 

Have you made any impulse home renovations lately?  Did you paint?  Retile?  Maybe you did a little demo work?

Blog Fest: The Past Year

Published on by Our Humble Abode6 Comments

I saw this idea on Young House Love and I thought this would be a fun post to honor our actual 1 year blog anniversary.  We’ve come a long way since starting this blog last May.  Here are our stats and numbers.

Over the course of a year, we have written 281 blog posts, for an average of .77 posts per day.

434 readers have subscribed to our site, not counting any that may follow along through a reader or by checking in each day.

At the end of May 2010, our first month of blogging, we had 253 total blog views.  I was so excited when we had 70 hits in one day.

In April, we had 49,006 blog views.

Our highest month, March, had 63,362  blog views.

Jen at IHeart Organizing was the first person to feature one of our projects, my office bookshelves.  We’ve been blog friends ever since.

Thanks to Young House Love’s feature of our dining table, August 6th had 11,305, the most page views in a single day.

Over the course of the year, we’ve had 428,673 blog views.  With 186,607 views in 2010, with a daily average of 804 views.  So far for 2011, we’ve had 242,044 total views, averaging 1,882 views per day.

We’ve uploaded 1,178 pictures and have 38 posts in our drafts folder.  Many of which are simply ideas or plans for things we want to do but haven’t.

We’ve held 20 giveaways,including our current art package, and have plans for more.

Our awesome readers have left us 3,471 comments while WordPress has blocked 5,690 spam comments, most of which contain the word, Lolita.  Yeah, you can guess what they’re ‘advertising’.

Adventures in Building a Dining Table is the most viewed post after the Home Page, Grand Tour, About, and Etsy Shop.

Since Ben bought our house in 2004, {2 years before we met, hence the lack of true before pictures}:

We’ve completely renovated 7 rooms and partly renovated 1 room, the laundry room.

We’ve also finished 1 basement with 6 rooms, starting from concrete walls.

1 room is waiting to be touched, the kitchen, which will be our largest, most expensive, time-consuming project to date.

50 fake birds occupy our house.  0 real birds live here.

We’ve added 4 built ins to our house including two entertainment centers and two ‘offices‘ if you count the laundry room as Ben’s office.

Ben has built 4 pieces of furniture (and counting)  for our home.  A nightstand, bookshelf, dining table, and our bed.

21 thrifted, garage sale or hand-me-down large items are in our house.  We’ve only purchased 5 large items at normal price from large retailers.  Two Dolce lounge chairs from Target, two Flor rugs, and our theater room sectional from Costco.

Of the 100+ projects we’ve tackled on this house, we’ve only hired out 2 jobs; drilling a well and cutting the concrete foundation for egress windows.

That’s the skinny on blogging.  Did we miss something you’d like to know?  We’ll see what we can scrounge up.