the nomadic summer

it's been another weird summer. we started out in May with an anniversary trip, and I thought, ok, let's not get on another airplane for at least a year. six flights and countless sodium-enriched meals later, it's good to be home.  my favorite sightseeing stop so far was Jerash, Jordan. although it was just a 45-minute trip from Amman, the dicey driving and our volunteer 'guide' (who had questionable ethics) made it feel more like an adventure.  Jerash is an old Roman city that basically crumbled sometime in the 700s after a major earthquake and a Persian invasion.  it's quite hard to believe so much of it is still intact -- Corinthian columns, Hadrian's arch, a colonnade, a coliseum, a hippodrome, a city-wide sewer system, fountains, churches, etc.!  here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. highly recommend for a stop in Jordan. needless to say, after a hot day in the sun, i got a legitimate lemon & mint to stay hydrated. it is my personal mission to bring this tasty middle eastern beverage to the States!

the main gate to Jerash

part of the Roman road and some excavated cobblestones

old-school bleachers in the hippodrome, to watch the chariot races

a teeny window

more of the 'cardo maximus' or long road through town. bumpy ride.

the meat-cutting area in the market. i took this picture, because you can see where the butcher sharpened his knives.

a view toward the coliseum

not sure what this is, but i liked the shot!

a fountain/bath area. marble statues used to stand in the recessed areas.

modern-day Jerash juxtaposed against the ruins

summertime at the beach

these beach prints from photographers Massimo Vitali and Richard Misrach make me forget the 100-degree DC heat and long for the refreshing waters of coastal Italy...

i'm on the hunt for something similar to hang in our living room, and the odds of me catching a helicopter ride in Italy sometime soon are pretty slim to none.  so if any of you happen to find a similar print in your flea market searches, keep me in mind!  

Massimo Vitali

another incredible Massimo from Elle Decor... how incredible is this dining room? wish i could steal that print, right off the wall.  

Richard Misrach's "On the Beach" series... love how something so simple can be so powerful.

DIY campaign style 2012...

it's the most important campaign and election year in this country's history. 

but really, who cares.

i'm more interested in what my dresser is wearing.  that is, my campaign-style dresser.  i have loved these dressers for a long time and almost fell over when our friends, the Alberts, decided to give us their worn and weary campaign dresser that was doubling as a TV stand.  they were moving to a small apartment in new york, and we were moving into an empty house in the burbs. 

so it sat for a few months in our garage while we were painting the dining room, the dining room, the dining room and again with the office, the office, the office.  my poor wrists needed a break from high-gloss paint.

then, i saw a price tag on a Kate Spade bag and fell in love...with the color of the tag.  it was such a rich Kermit green color, Miss Piggy would swoon.

then, i saw this on Pinterest from some unknown but fabulous magazine and was completely inspired to move ahead with my green.  honestly, it was meant to be:

and lo and behold, someone else had my green campaign dresser idea, down to the turquoise accents! (sometimes, i just hate pinterest for proving none of my ideas are original.)

and here's a beautiful, real campaign dresser that really needs no paint at all.  the real deals were made to travel with British naval officers like suitcases back in the day.

and a cutie bedside table painted in high-gloss white.

and another great bedside version in my runner-up color of dark grey.

so here's my original, "before" picture.  i forgot to take one before all the drawers were out with their hardware removed, oops. it's hard to tell, but the dresser had a dated vaneer finish.  very 1975. andy is much more excited about that honda lawnmower in the background.  vroom.

but after four coats of paint and a hot saturday morning, i'm very excited about my green campaign dresser, which is now hanging out in the guest room instead of the garage.  and it was only $14.98, thanks to the Alberts and a quart of Behr paint!  (the tag matched Basil Green from Benajamin Moore, which I had replicated at Home Depot. it's really not as flourescent green as it looks in the pics, thanks to my iphone camera!)

say hello to kermie!

somewhere between the moon and new york city...

actually, somewhere between Cincinnati and Dulles Airport...is our patio dining table.  I took four hours off of work so i could wait for the freight company to deliver it, but alas, they can't find piece 4 of 4.  the freight company says, 'we only have 3 pieces.' me: 'where is the 4th piece?' them: 'we have 3 pieces.' and so on, and so on with three other offices of the freight company.  if you have ever shopped for patio furniture, you know it's way more painful than, say, buying a house or a new car.  back in the olden days, one could skip over to Ace Hardware or Walmart and toss some fancy plastic chairs in the pickup and voila, patio problem solved. i don't know if the world recession has something to do with keeping things in stock, but the entire DC area has NO patio furniture in stock. anything you find must be ordered, and if you're lucky, it shows up about a month later.  talk about your modern day, snotty suburban problems. war in Syria? explosions in Nigeria? forgetaboutit, my patio table is missing.


the good news is, if you're looking for cute, durable, and affordable (most way less than $2,000 for a 7-piece set) patio furniture, i have done most of the work for you. i won't reveal our final pick until the table magically appears (and i really hope it does before the fam visits next week!), but maybe i'll save you the agony and despair of looking among thousands of websites and warehouse stores. 


follow me on Pinterest! most of my patio pictures can be found here: {lemon and mint} outdoor spaces


although limited in selection, Ballard Designs has some great patio dining options, and you can usually find a 15% coupon somewhere online.

'Ceylon' - the cheapest 7-piece solid-wood option I found.  The set is white-washed, but it also comes in solid teak, which is supposed to last for years and years.

'Galante': the only Chippendale version of patio furniture. anywhere. period. talk about fancy pants.

'Giodano': classic in every French sense of the word. oh wait, that's classique.

Sears has some surprisingly European patio sets:

'Crimora': the only cane backing around.  the table has a natural stone top in four heavy slabs. i hear horror stories about glass and tile-top patio tables breaking during shipment, but this one gets rave reviews.

'San Rafael': bonus points for having a two-person bench as a seating option

Hayneedle also has some great options:

'Bella': wicker resin, nothing rots and everyone's happy.

'Madison': modern but with a classy twist. looks like Crate & Barrel stuff but way cheaper.

'Mingle': reminds me of Southern screened porches, so deserved a mention.

Amazon, Lowe's, Target, and Home Depot have some other good options, but most of their choices did not fit my criteria.  I was trying to avoid:

1) tempered glass tables. based on angry reviews and online comments, these tables break about 85% of the time during shipment or during child use.  Tile-top tables are in the same category. Lots of falling apart, especially tables in the Martha Stewart line (surprisingly).

2) cheap wood. Acacia and other soft woods that aren't treated properly tend to have splinters, peel and crack, and often warp in the first few months of life oustide. no thanks. plus, i'm sort of over restaining/resealing wood furniture every year or even twice a year. for teak, maybe, but i got enough stuff inside that needs refinishing!

3) unsealed plastic or non-coated aluminum that gets really hot in the sun or warps over time. 

And finally, avoid pricey stores that tend to mark up their prices by 2-5 times the point of ridiculous.  Great Gatherings, Frontgate, Offenbacher's, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, and Crate and Barrel to name a few.  love those stores, but wait until their end-of-season clearance! if you find something at one of those places, send me a picture and i guarantee i can find you something similar for waaaay less.

Happy dining under the stars!

london {shades} calling...

as luck would have it, my amazingly talented mother-in-law Stephanie totally gets how to make a london shade.  and as luck would have it, my weird husband picked out grey raw silk fabric for drapes back in his bachelor days and never used it.  wham bam, our dining room is the new recipient of semi-free london shades made out of awesome grey silk.


dining room before (oh the horrors):

dining room after:

spring it on - before & afters!

there is something magical about having one extra hour of sunlight.  the hibernation ends, and once again I feel productive and energized.  so, in honor of daylight savings time, here is the almost-there reveal for the living room and the peacock-blue office!

the living room before (pink with brown accent wall, ugly brick around fireplace, no window coverings, and a horrific amount of molding above the mantle, etc.):

the living room after (revere pewter walls, tango tangerine couch!, sealskin fireplace, and plantation shutters.  couch: room&board, grey leather chairs and rug: west elm, lack square coffee tables: IKEA, mercury glass gourd lamps: HomeGoods)

most of the art we put up is actually decorative paper from Paper Source (previous post).  the photos above the fireplace are of the camels I rode through Petra, Jordan, a few years ago. love those camels.

the office before (pink and mauve, with maroon accents and wallpaper, yuck!):

inspiration office:

the office after (peacock blue/green, with black, white and orange accents, yay!):

still looking for my zebra inspiration rug... and I'm hoping to fill that far wall with all our black & white travel photos.  orange magazine holders are from IKEA and only $3.99 for a pack of two! (Domino, I held on to you...)

so that's what i've been doing for the past three months!  here's my favorite little flower, ranunculus, to welcome in the spring!

DIY discovery - disc hangers!

this story begins with an errant click on ebay.  i've done a lot of window shopping on ebay but never bought anything before.  I won't go into the gory details about how I accidentally bought a whole "lot" of pewter, but it arrived a few days later, and I couldn't wait to hang some of the items on the wall.  because two of the pieces are bowls, I wanted to try out these 'disc hanger' things.  instead of standard plate hangers, which have unsightly wire 'claws,' these disc hangers, when wet, create a non-damaging adhesive that sticks to the back of your plate/hanging item.  and because the hangers come in different sizes, you can hang teeny tiny plates, giant bowls, or odd-shaped items that don't work with standard plate hangers.  love them!  why don't craft stores carry these??

essentially, you apply water to the back of the disc hanger and place it where you want it to go.  the glue starts to get tacky almost immediately, but you need to wait 24 hours to ensure a strong bond.  i read several customer reviews about how these things won't stick to pewter, but mine turned out great. you just have to be patient and wait out those 24 hours!  if you decide you want your plate back for the table, you can dissolve the adhesive in warm water.

the result is a fun arrangement sans unsightly wire hangers! 

don't these guys brighten up this dark corner? I need to make more mistakes on ebay...

PS: our beautiful orange velvet sofa arrived at 8am this morning, three weeks ahead of schedule. pictures coming soon.  i love Room & Board!

painting tips for normal people

we had professional painters come on friday to paint our two-story foyer (i'm not building scaffolding to do this!), the upstairs hallway (too much cutting-in and too much moulding), the master bedroom (vaulted ceilings, two layers of crown moulding and two layers of  oddly separated chair rails), and the master bath (ditto).  they arrived after 9am and left by 5pm. lickety-split, they had painted two thick coats for all the rooms and didn't even have to come back on saturday morning to touch-up.  the heavens parted, the angels sang, and i was inspired.  so I thought, hmm, maybe I can just knock out painting the office this weekend.  let's rewind to last week's post.  office = pink walls + chair rail + three-tier bookcase with mirrors + wallpaper.  by the end of yesterday, I had applied one layer of wallpaper sealant (Zinsser Gardz) to cover the hideous maroon-and-baby blue STRIPED wallpaper and three layers of primer.  after the first layer of peacock blue ("Stilettos" by alan + roth), the wallpaper still showed through.  the only thing I hate more than striped wallpaper is maroon-and-baby blue striped wallpaper.  so we're on our third layer of peacock paint, and Andy's at Lowe's likely having the same conversation with the counter that I did yesterday morning - "you're doing what? we can't mix that paint in a high gloss finish!" since this project evolved from a one-day project into a likely multi-weekend affair, thought I'd share some useful home painting tips, both from the pros on friday and from our 'lessons learned' folder.

1. don't waste time washing brushes and rollers if you have to put a project on pause (or wait for more paint).  just wrap them in cling wrap (or my fave, press 'n seal) and stick them in the fridge until you're ready to use them again.  if they are properly sealed, you can leave them in there for weeks, and they will still be fresh for touch-ups.  changed my life forever.

2. pour your paint into a five-gallon bucket and use the over-the-side scrape-y thing.  way easier than continuously moving the one-gallon bucket and paint tray around.  i'm convinced the pros shaved about 24 hours off their painting time by using this trick.

3. use your one-gallon bucket and a rubberband to quickly cut-in your ceilings from the ladder. (my cans never look this shiny.)

4. when painting over wallpaper, make sure to use the right kind of sealant. Kilz just doesn't cut it. you need something that will seep into the paper and prevent it from peeling off later.