Friday Fun: Snack Time

After a dramatic week due to the weather, it was really nice to have a sunny afternoon at home to bake this mini pie, and to enjoy it a la mode.

And while I waited for it to bake,  I was seduced by the marmalade that Tawny and I made.  When I looked down at my plate I realized that I'd made everything from scratch, the bread, the cheese and the marmalade.  The marmalade is going to have to become a yearly tradition, its so delicious.

Most of the U.S. (and Australia, and probably Canada) has experienced dramatic weather this past week.  Ours came in the form of bitter cold, which caused between 25 to 30% of all the people I know to suffer from frozen and/or burst water pipes.  (Yes, I calculated that using the unscientific method of using my workplace as typical).  Then the state started running out of natural gas, which meant that some towns were without it altogether, leaving many with no heat.  Thank goodness we're having a little reprieve today.  Lessons learned?  Marry a plumber, they are flush this month, and invest in solar.

Weekend Edition: Lost Weekend and California Recap

I got back from California on Thursday, and I was as sick as a dog!  I was feverish, achy, and coughing like I had the croup.  I spent Thursday afternoon, and most of Friday asleep on my couch with my dog looking worriedly after me.  By Saturday I felt well enough to accompany my mom out to finish our Christmas shopping, in part because I was buoyed by the Chicken Curry Stew at this restaurant.   Then back to the couch and early to bed.  On Sunday I felt a lot better, and I was back to baking my weekly loaf of sourdough, and making braised short ribs with sauerkraut for dinner, as well as catching up on a week-plus loads of laundry. Pretty dull stuff.  Since I planned to do a trip wrap-up on Friday for my Friday Fun post and felt too sick to get online, I'm just going to do it now instead.  Lost weekend, over and forgotten.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures while in California, well I did, but they were mostly of Tawny opening every gift that she received at her shower, and the items that we wanted to remember for later at IKEA.  Won't bore you with those!  Here is a quick pictorial view of the trip and some of the things we did.

Oceanside, California.

Tawny's belly, I guess that was about 33 weeks.

The next morning I made this flower arrangement for the baby shower from the things growing in Tawny and Jack's front yard.  Tea roses, camellias, bird-of-paradise, kangaroo paws, and oranges in your yard and blooming in December?  Yeah, that's the draw of California, in case you've never felt it before.

One of the buntings that I made her last shower was recycled for this shower. Yay fabric!

Tawny and her friend Annie.  They've been friends since middle school.   Tawny's mom is an amazing seamstress and she made that blouse as well as several others.  The details were really beautiful.

Present time!  

Tawny has that giant smile throughout all the photos from the shower.  Good job party organizers, you made her really happy.  I think everyone was laughing here because we all agreed that Jack was going to want a matching set of lion pajamas.

The baby shower was on Saturday, and on Sunday our focus switched to home improvement projects.  These are some of the bamboo flooring samples that Tawny was pricing.  She and Jack have only been in their current house for a little over a month, and their landlady has agreed that she'll pay for new laminate or bamboo flooring if Jack will install it.  Tawny is leaning heavily towards the bamboo option, and these pale colors were the simplest and cheapest options.  She's hoping that if costs are low enough they'll get to do the whole house, and not just the living room and kitchen.

Next we hit up IKEA looking for bedding, rugs, and decor items for the nursery/guest room.  This rug fit the color scheme perfectly, but in the end was rejected because it was synthetic, and Tawny wants a wool rug.

We both liked this poster, and again it fit the color scheme and has an educational component, but it too was left behind.  I'll do a separate nursery post update later in the week.

This is one of many citrus trees that adorn Tawny and Jack's yard.  This is an orange, but there is also a pomelo, a grapefruit, a lemon, a lime, and several tangerines.  Also a peach, an apple, a guava, a strawberry guava and two pomegranates.  Right now the citrus is just starting to ripen in quantity and Tawny doesn't know how to use it up fast enough.  She needs a juicer stat!

I suggested we make marmalade, which was fun.  We ended up with 17 jars of marmalade and really didn't use that much citrus, considering.  Oh well, she's got Christmas gifts at the ready, which is good considering the next paragraph's news.  It was her first time canning anything, and this was her leaning over the jars giggling as the lids popped down after they came out of the water bath.

Tawny's due date was supposed to be January 24th, but on Saturday her water broke and she's currently in the hospital getting ready to have Baby Boy six weeks early.  Everything seems healthy with mother and son, he just wants out early.  Good luck baby and mama!

Friday Fun: Virtual Decorating for My Style

Emma over at The Marion House blog has been examining her house room by room to identify whether or not she's staying on message with her personal style.  Since I'd been thinking about this idea myself, today's post is about clarifying my vision for my house in general, and my living room in particular.

To begin with, nothing in my living room reflects my current tastes.  I kind of hate it.  It has an awkward layout with doors and windows every where.  (You can see a floor plan here). It's filled with furniture that I picked up here and there, mostly during grad school when I was basically only home when it was time to sleep.  My couch is totally ugly, but extremely comfortable.  My dog loves it.  My cat used to love to scratch it.  It looks like a couch dominated by animals.  None of the furniture relates to the other furniture in terms of scale, color or materials.  The fuchsia wall has exceeded it's welcome after 8 years.  I still think it's a beautiful color, but I just don't want it on my wall anymore.  My camera doesn't capture red tones well, the color you see on your screen probably isn't very accurate, but rest assured it's a strong color.  The wood stove?  Keeps me warm sometimes, but I'd like to replace it with one of those super minimal scandinavian insert stoves, which will be built into a wall of bookshelves.

Looking into the living room from the kitchen door.  

Love the placement of that thermostat.  Also, that huge kilim?  Belongs to a friend who has moved to another state and left it behind.  I brought it out to see if I liked it, but the colors really aren't my thing.  Way too much orange.  And why is the couch blocking a doorway?  Its because that's the hall to the old bathroom, which has been  mostly demolished, but not put back together and so no one ever goes in there.  I plan to finish the demo and move that doorway to the left so that there is a longer expanse of wall for the couch to go against.  Until recently the furniture was arranged so that the couch faced the television(s), and the traffic flow was choppy.  I got sick of it and wanted to see if things would really get better once I move the doorway.

Standing near the wood stove and looking back towards the kitchen.

I like the turquoise chairs because they are small in stature and leggy, but they need reupholstering because they are straight out of the 1950s vinyl.   The ceilings are pretty low, just shy of 8 feet.  I'd like to knock out the plaster and expose the wood beams and cladding that I know is up there, but again, that's a big messy renovation, and I want to wait until I can replace the windows and then get everything re-plastered to cover up the patches at the same time.  The two televisions?  I decided that I'd upgrade to a smaller flat screen when the whole digital signal conversion thing happened.  I hate tvs that dominate a room, so smaller seemed better.  Then I was too lazy to program the new tv for six months because I never really watch tv, and meanwhile I realized that my old bigger tv was a lot easier to see from way over here on the couch, and I kept using it to watch dvds.  So now I have not one tv, but two, dominating my living room.  Sigh.  Someday the tv will be out of the main living room altogether.

Standing at the front door looking into the weird nook-room that used to be my office.

This used to be my office.  I packed up all of my books and moved out my desk last year in preparation for some renovations that need to be done in my bedroom that will involve ripping up it's floor and temporarily moving the bed in here.  It hasn't happened because I can't afford to do it quite yet (broken record), so disassembling the office was a little premature.  Oh well.  My long term plan is to build-in some bookshelves and turn this into a library like room that also houses the tv.  Also to install a sliding panel door using barn door hardware, so that the room can be closed off, and so that the wall that the couch sits against can be lengthened somewhat.  Oh, and that small window will one day become a door that will lead to the converted garage.  Yeah, no ambitious plans here.

Okay, so now that you are feeling really good about your own houses, I'm moving into the inspiration portion.  I always want to wait on the cosmetic stuff until I've done the major renovations, but I don't want all this mish-mash crap anymore!  My inspiration is primarily interiors with lots of natural elements--different wood tones, maybe raw wood, raw materials like linen, wool, leather, sisal.  Then contrasted with some serious bling.  I've always had a penchant for shiny girly things.

These first four interiors are from the portfolio of photographer Mikkel Vang, which I found via Graphic-Exchange.  The photo on the right, in the first set, is probably my favorite interior image from the last year.  I like all the wood that is used throughout the house, especially the big round tables, but also the bed.  The bright natural light doesn't hurt either.

Mikkel Vang photography.

Mikkel Vang photography

This living room is good too.  Low backed couch looks comfortably slouchy, blue toned painting references nature, big orchid on the coffee table, reclaimed wood coffee table, drapes in what looks like canvas or linen, and a big fur rug.  Also, check out that white Serge Mouille lamp.  

Source unknown, if you recognize it please let me know and I'll add a credit.

For the glam inspiration?  This gold mosaic tiled fireplace with the down lit bookshelves on either side.  Ingo Maurer is awesome, and while that light fixture of his with all of the winged light bulbs wouldn't be my first choice fixture, it's perfect in this room.  I like the over the top fireplace materials applied in a minimalist way.  I like the whimsy and humor of the chandelier.  I like the large scale photograph of the religious icon for its statement making abilities.  Those leather sling chairs are enviable and the focus on books not media equipment is lovely too.

Source unknown, if you recognize it please let me know and I'll add a credit.

How would I interpret these interiors for my own space and within my own budget?  Here is what I'm thinking so far. (Click the image and it will open a larger version).  

A really chalky beigey pink on all the walls.  The sliding wall could either be painted gold (Ralph Lauren has a nice line of metallic paints) or faux-gold leafed, or just be homasote with a sueded finish and not gold at all.  I just fell in love with the Tom Dixon light fixture last week when it was featured on some blog... I thought it was Remodelista, but can't find it.  That's a knock-off Mouille lamp of course.  I have mixed feelings about knock-offs, but when the original re-issue costs $8,500, I'm pretty much okay with a copy.  I'd never seen the low rod base for the Eames fiberglass chairs until recently, and I really like them.  Makes things loungy.  The terracotta color goes well with the natural theme.  I'm planning to make a low round coffee table out of reclaimed wood from an old shed on the property, and the buffet is just a stand in for a less-modern version that I already own and like.  The recycled leather rug really appeals to me too, although a sisal or jute rug could work just as well.  Best of all, the most expensive thing in here is a new sofa.  The old one would be around the corner in the nook, conveniently hidden by that shiny gold wall.

So now I have a plan.  Just need the money to implement it.

Friday Fun: Museum of International Folk Art

I guess in the 1950s you wanted your jewelry designer to have that bad boy charm.   Pic from here.

Unless the weather takes a turn for the worse, I'm currently up in Santa Fe where the Museum of International Folk Art has an exhibit of the work of Mexican modernist jewelry designer Antonio Pineda.  I've seen crystal and bullet necklaces all over the web lately, but I'll bet this was the original that inspired them all. (Although maybe this is more like amethyst jaguar teeth).

This necklace is in a private collection.  Image from here. 

Friday Fun: Strangely Natural

When I say that I live on the urban/rural edge, I really mean it.  Our house is in a neighborhood, we have city water, sewer, etc., and it only takes ten minutes on city streets to reach downtown.  However, due to the large lots, acequia systems, county distinction that allows for lot of farm animals per acre, we have a lot of nature at hand too.  I've found and collected all kinds of interesting natural things from around the property-- crawdad claws (they come from the ditch), desiccated lizards (crawled into a poster tube in my mud room and apparently couldn't get out again), pieces of wood with perfectly circular holes bored by woodpeckers, all kinds of feathers from common doves to pheasant tail feathers, but what I found today might take the cake.

Seriously, is that the most phallic mushroom you've ever seen?  It was even wet on the tip.  I have no idea what kind of mushroom that is, but it was just growing out of the front lawn.  Nature is really amazing sometimes.

Update: It really is phallic... I think it's most likely a Phallus impudicus, or Common Stinkhorn mushroom.  It did have a distinct odor, although I wouldn't say it stunk.  It mostly just smelled mushroom-y.  

Friday Fun: One Day Early

Yep, I spent all day yesterday in leisure pursuits, and today will be mostly chores to make up for it.  I was gone most of the day yesterday looking for Fall color in the form of bigtooth maples in the 4th of July Canyon.  New Mexico is primarily yellow when it comes to Fall leaves-- our aspens turn yellow, our cottonwoods too.  Beautiful, especially against our insanely blue skies, but sometimes a little variety is nice.  This was the best we found, as the rest had already faded or fallen, but the trip was fun nonetheless.  Its close by too, less than an hour from Albuquerque, I'd say.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that my buntings are finished, packed up and mailed off.  Whew, on to the next sewing project.

Friday Fun: Fall Flowers

I'm still feeling under the weather and it's overcast and cool here today, which means that I'm planning not to leave the property all day.  In order to bring a little fun into my day, I cut some fall flowers to adorn my kitchen.  The zinnias are in their prime right now, but we're bound to get a frost soon, so I figured I'd better cut some before it's too late.  The red spikes are from the pineapple sage.  Edible leaves and great fall flowers?  Plant some soon!  This bouquet, along with comforting leftovers made my lunch as fun as possible.

In keeping with the floral theme, I bought this blue floral cape on Wednesday at Savers.  I kind of love it, even though capes are difficult to wear.  Take it from Garance Doré, she recently wrote about her cape dilemma.  

So yeah, like it in theory, but in practice capes are a bit awkward for arms and bags.  And this upholstery fabric in a shapeless cut?  Probably not the most flattering.  Overall I really like it, but what could one wear with it?  I'm thinking this dress underneath would be perfect, if I had a wedding to attend soon.  I don't.

Matilija velvet burnout dress, $188.

And those J.Crew red shoes that I've posted about before could look awesome with skinny jeans, this cape, and red lipstick, right?

J.Crew Coddington suede platform pump in Dusk Red, $228.

Anyway, for the rest of the day I'm going to stay inside, drink lots of tea, and deconstruct some other vintage finds that have been awaiting my attention.  Have a good weekend!

Friday Fun: The Weather

We had a brief sun shower this morning.  Just little harmless looking clouds like this made it rain for about three minutes.  Luckily I didn't miss it!  I made a little video which will be available via vimeo once it processes.  Could take up to two hours this morning. (Sigh).  I'll just edit the post to add it in once it finishes, and I'll be back later with an update on one of those pesky projects that I've been working on for months.


Sun Shower from S@sha on Vimeo.

Friday Fun: Part Two

Part two of Friday Fun is house related. Remember the site plan I shared a couple of months ago? This is the floor plan of my house. It's about a 1000 square feet in size. Based on stories from the neighbors, I think it was built in the mid-to late 1940s. That makes sense when thinking of greater Albuquerque, because it had a huge boom post-WWII. My Mom's house probably dates to the 1920s or 30s, when the South Valley really started to expand as a farming neighborhood.

This floor plan (above) represents the layout of the house as it was when we purchased the property in December 2001. It had a cute cozy appeal to me, but it was really choppy due to some strange decisions in a series of add-ons. For example, the door to the bedroom was off the kitchen, and their were two bathrooms that were both in bad shape. The kitchen was huge, but just had a tiny set of cabinets in one corner and then a lot of empty space, and the water heater was in the kitchen (which I hate!). There were two little rooms at the back of the house with no obvious purpose other than storage, so I've deemed them mud-rooms, except that they are attached to the bedroom... where's the logic in that? There was a lot of fake wood paneling, and nothing had been updated since sometime in the 1970s, so a lot of the surfaces just needed to be torn out and replaced. The bones were good though. Everything except the blue part is adobe construction. The pink part has wood floors. There are lots of windows. There is a a wood stove (it's not my style and will someday be replaced, but a fire in the winter is awfully nice). The house has a nice pitched metal roof. And it's spacious for a one bedroom house.


This floor plan represents my planned changes.  The first few months of living in the house I mostly just painted everything white and tried to start cobbling together enough furniture to have things to sit on. Then a few months later, I started grad school. I was so busy that I don't even remember the exact order that I made the next major changes. I think I ripped out the closets that served the bedroom and living room in order to re-open the original door from the bedroom to the living room. Then I demolished the kitchen because I couldn't live with it. My house had been a rental, while the owners lived in my mom's house, and like most rental kitchens no one had really cleaned it well in decades. There was a grease layer on everything. The stove top worked, but not the oven, and the stove was brown. The counters had been retiled by an amateur, who meant well, but was not talented. There was a hole in the floor by one of the windows where moisture had probably leaked until the subfloor rotted, and there was a section of wall near the door where the roof had leaked and eroded the plaster. I had just about zero dollars to redo the kitchen, because I was in grad school full time, but I didn't care. It was disgusting!

A few years ago I had a hard drive crash and I seem to have lost most of my "before" pictures of the house. I have these two tiny images that show the demo in progress, but can't find any of the ugly old cabinets. The wood ceiling was covered in drywall, but I knew it was under there and wanted to reveal it. The door on the right next to the water heater leads to the bedroom, and the stove used to be just to the left of it.



This image is looking into that same corner of the room where the water heater and door used to be. My mom and I framed and dry-walled a new wall, and I had a plumber come and relocate all the piping for the sink, stove, etc. Oh yeah, and relocate the water heater to the mud-room at the back of the house. (Woo-hoo!) That was the largest bulk expense. I think all that plumbing work cost about $800. I saved a lot on electrical by running all the new wiring myself, and then having our electrician come and inspect it all and connect it to the circuit breaker. All in all that probably cost about $500.

Brick floors were one of the cheapest options I could find, flooring-wise. Brick floors are pretty traditional in adobe houses, so it was regionally appropriate. The bricks were manufactured a couple miles from my house, and I was able to buy seconds, which made them pretty cheap. My awesome best friend helped me install them on Thanksgiving weekend. Materials, delivery, and wet-saw rental came to about $650. It was really hard work, and I have always said that I'd never do it again. Bricks are heavy, rough, and can be hard to level over an existing slab. The tamping and sand-filling process, which I did completely alone after the floor was laid, took forever and I honestly thought that my knees might be permanently damaged. Once I got it finished and sealed it was all worth it.


I lucked out and got my cabinets for free. The director of my grad program was redoing his kitchen the same summer and I asked him what he was going to do with his old cabinets since I knew that he had replaced all of the doors and they were pretty nice. He was happy to give them to me instead of the landfill or the Re-Store. I had to figure out how to configure them to fit the kitchen layout that I wanted, but it worked out well because I didn't really want upper cabinets. I took a couple of the cabinets and constructed an island. I bought his dishwasher for $75. That old stove is one that I've had for years, and I really like it. I planned to use it, but ended up buying a white Jenn-Air range ($900 at scratch & dent warehouse) instead because the 1930s stove just looked out of place.

I spent another $650 on IKEA butcher block counters, stainless steel sink and faucet. Grand total so far? $3575. Super cheap for a kitchen. Even with other materials, such as light fixtures, paint, tools, wood, etc, the kitchen comes in well under $5000. Pretty miraculous for a complete gut job. That doesn't include a couple of big ticket items. I've yet to get a new refrigerator, and I am stymied on tile for a backsplash. Also, no range hood, or ceiling fan yet. It took a long time, six years to get fully functional, but that's because I did everything myself with the help of friends and family, and as I could afford it. I don't have a complete after photo, because I'm still doing things like painting the cabinets and doing finish trim. I'm working on that though! There is a more recent photo of that original corner where the bedroom door was in this post. And since then, I have gotten the shelves up which alleviated some of the clutter because my cookbooks finally have a home.  (There are two mirrors above the sink in since it's on an interior wall).

Whew, that was a monster of a post.  If you are still reading I'm impressed. I'll spare descriptions of all of the other plans for the house until another time.

Friday Fun: Part One

This is starting to look formulaic with me posting another thrifting expedition on Friday Fun. Except I'm cheating a little because my planned post isn't finished. So I'm posting images from my thrifting trip on Tuesday, which I didn't post on Wednesday due to Blogger not wanting to upload any photos for me. That hasn't changed, I'm still having to cheat that too.  Anyway, on Tuesday I had lunch and went thrifting with a friend and her lovely daughter, who came down from Santa Fe. Her daughter is six months old already and this is the first time I've seen her. She is baby that I made this little rabbit toy for, and she had it with her during the visit. As expected she is an adorable baby, and very calm and good natured. It was a good thrifting expedition. Here's what I found.

Brass bracelets, $3.50 for all four.

Suede bomber, $7.

Nubby burgundy/brown sweater coat.  Has a nice 70s vibe. $7.

My friend made out handily as well, scoring two Harris tweed blazers for her husband, several antique muslin baby shifts in perfect condition, a gorgeous Etienne Aiger trench coat in perfect condition (which I let her have even though it had the coolest lapels because I thought it was just a bit too narrow through the shoulders for me-- it was one of those thrift finds that are so great that you contemplate going on a crash diet just to be able to fit into), among other things.  It was a fun afternoon, even if it happened on Tuesday, not Friday.

Friday Fun: In the Neighborhood

My very best friend is having a baby!  Holy mackerel will it be a cute baby.  (It's a boy).  I can already see that I'm going to be one of those fake-aunt crazy ladies who buys/makes tons of things for her kid.  Luckily she's an only child, so there are no real aunts whose toes I'll be stepping on.  I spent the morning brainstorming an imaginary nursery for her.  She and her husband are about to move into a new place, so I have no idea what the space will actually look like, but I'm super familiar with all of her furniture and tastes, so I think I've come up with some good stuff.  Will share later.

After being on the computer all morning, I thought I'd take a quick jaunt out into the neighborhood to find a little fun.  (That's slim pickings down here... you'll see).

First stop the library, where I returned a couple of books and then skimmed the fiction shelves for a pile of easy reading.  Nice shallow chic lit and historical mysteries, perfect for the weekend.

Then I hit up the local Goodwill.  Thrift stores are usually pretty indicative of the demographic of that neighborhood, have you noticed that?  My neighborhood is not trendy.  Our local Goodwill is generally pretty terrible, but if you look closely you can find something here and there.

This is the only thing I bought.  It's a silk tunic with a watercolor flower motif.  It needs a little work.  Maybe shortening the sleeves, or cutting them off altogether?  Its already less dowdy looking just with a belt.

I did not buy this small chalkboard which is a great size for a kitchen or office or kids room, because I don't have any wall space in my kitchen.  If anyone else wants it-- S. Valley Goodwill, $5.99-ish.

Didn't buy this earth-toned ceramic lamp either.  It was $14.99 which seemed bizarrely expensive to me. That's part of my dislike for this Goodwill, it seems to have really random pricing.  If you had a really awesome Eco-California-Natural style going on, it could be great.  (Or you know, wicked styling skills in the manner of Emily Henderson, most recent Design Star winner).

Example of random pricing, this brass chandelier was only $7.99.  It would look great painted black, but I didn't buy it because my ceilings are low, and chandeliers don't work.

This hand-painted Virgin of Guadalupe was $4.99.  Seriously?  It should have been $0.50.  I might have bought it then.  (What?  Its New Mexico, we really like the Virgin of Guadalupe here.  I'm not immune.)

And that was it.  I told you slim pickings.  What was your Friday fun?